Secrets Rising (17 page)

She hesitated, looking from Rebecca to Jake, down to her hands then up again. "I always thought Charles was one of Ben's rescues. He settled in here as though he had no past, no family. He never went home—wherever home was—and never talked about anyone. Ben gave such a glowing account of how Charles saved his life, but I was never sure it was quite so clear-cut. Of course, Charles has made a place for himself here in Edgewater. He advanced to Sergeant on the police force, then Lieutenant then Chief, and now he's the Mayor. I suppose that says something about him."

"And to discourage me from trying to find my mother," Rebecca added stubbornly. She trusted Doris, and they could certainly use a friend in this town where someone made threatening phone calls and slipped them a misleading newspaper clipping, where the Chief of Police broke out headlights and the motel maid forgot how to speak English. "Can you think of any reason he might do that? Anybody he might be protecting?"

Doris looked troubled but not as startled as Rebecca might have expected before the woman admitted her own reservations about Charles. "No, I have no idea why he would do that. But Charles and I haven't been close since Ben's death."

"Is Charles married?" Jake asked.

"No, he's never been married. As you might imagine, he's considered a very eligible bachelor. He escorts most of the single women from time to time, but never anybody in particular."

Doris shrugged. "The usual things. That he doesn't like women, though there's no evidence he likes men, either. He travels a lot, and people speculate that he has a married girlfriend in Dallas or Ft. Worth."

"What do you think?"

"Charles is...different. He's very focused. If he has someone in another city, I'd guess that it's...excuse my frankness...a paid escort."

"So he's never been linked with a woman?"

"Well, there was one time a lot of years ago. Nothing ever came of it, though. I always thought it was just wishful thinking on the part of the woman."

"Who was she? What happened?" From the corner of her eye, Rebecca could see Jake lean forward as he spoke, waiting for Doris' answer.

"She was a really nice young woman. She'd always been shy and didn't mix well with the other young people. Her father was a minister of the Pentecostal church. He was very strict with her, and even though she must have been in her thirties, I don't believe she ever dated. I'm not sure anybody ever saw Charles and her in public together, but for a while, the rumor went around that they were to be married. Then abruptly she became a complete recluse, and that rumor died. She refused to come out of the house for several months and finally died from an overdose of sleeping pills. They said it was accidental, but I have always felt the poor tortured soul took her own life."

Chapter 14

It was late afternoon when they left Doris Jordan's house. Doris had given them the address and phone number for Lorraine Griffin, Janelle's mother. Jake had expected Rebecca to leap up and insist they go question the woman immediately, but she didn't. Probably because she didn't want to consider the possibility that Charles could be her father. He couldn't blame her for that.

Or maybe her lack of reaction was because Doris seemed to weave a spell about Rebecca, pulling her into a sense of security Rebecca no longer had...if she'd ever had it. Her parents' death and her subsequent discovery of her adoption had thrown her for a loop, but he suspected she'd always looked for too much from others. She still hadn't accepted that the only person she could count on, the only person who could give her security, was herself.

"Let's go to dinner tomorrow," Rebecca suggested to Doris as they walked out on the porch into the stifling heat. Any sign of a breeze had died. The leaves overhead were still, drooping as if their energy had been sapped.

"That would be lovely," Doris said without hesitation. He had to hand it to her. She was an up-front lady, open and without coyness in her need for and extension of friendship. She seemed to have achieved a rare balance...the ability to take from and give to other people while still relying on herself when the need arose.

"Let's go to the best restaurant in town, my treat," Rebecca continued. "And I hope it's better than the one at the motel."

"We have a couple of very nice places here."

"Good. We'll pick you up about seven."

We'll,
she'd said, and he hated the pleasure that rippled through him at her use of the word that included him.

They reached the end of the walk, and he opened the car door for her. "Nice of you to include me in your dinner party plans," he said, and even he wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or genuine.

They turned the corner, and she slumped back in her seat, as if she'd left her vitality behind with Doris Jordan, as if their descent from Doris' cool house into the unrestrained heat had wilted her.

He flicked on the air conditioning. The temperature was going up instead of down even though the sky was turning a darker blue with the approach of evening. Or maybe the surge of heat rose from the thought that he was heading back to the motel with Rebecca, from the memory of her in his room in that gauzy white gown combined with the memory of the way she'd kissed him in the cemetery.

The argument had lost its strength. He knew she wasn't going back, and she knew that he knew and there was no point in wasting energy arguing. Not when he really didn't want her to go back. At least, his body didn't want her to. His mind knew better, but his body wanted her right there, close to him, tantalizing, teasing, tempting him to do something stupid.

"In that case we're stuck with the motel. I figured you'd want me to get right on the Janelle Griffin thing and to do that, we need a telephone."

She offered no response, continuing to stare straight ahead through the windshield at the darkening sky. It must be even later than he'd thought. Surely the days weren't already becoming shorter in July.

"You do realize, don't you, that if Janelle Griffin is your mother, not only is she dead, but that means all your search will turn up is a not very desirable father, Charles Morton?" He made himself say the words, be deliberately cruel, force her to face reality.

"I understand the implications of Janelle's connection with Morton." Her voice was tense, and the same tension emanated from her, filling the close confines of the vehicle, combining with the oppressive heat that even the blasting air conditioner couldn't seem to dissipate.

"As long as you're ready to deal with that possibility." He had to push her, force her to confront the circumstances that could break her.

She gazed out the window in silence for several moments. "Storm's coming," she finally said.

Yes, he thought, that's what he was pushing her toward. A storm. A release of that tension that had been growing since the first day she walked into his office...the tension inside her and the tension between the two of them.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and he realized she was speaking literally. That's why the sky was getting dark, why the atmosphere pushed against him with so much force it was difficult to breathe. It was the approaching storm that filled the air around and inside him with minute charges of electricity, making him want to crawl out of his skin...or into Rebecca's.

Only the storm.

"Stop," she said. "Up there."

A block away he saw the park where they'd gone the day before to study the newspaper clippings from the library. "Under all those trees? Are you crazy or you just like to tempt lightning?"

"For a few minutes. Please. I've always loved storms. We had a screened in porch that faced the west, and we'd sit out there and watch them roll in. I want to see it from here instead of from that awful motel."

The lost quality in her voice touched a long-forgotten chord, sending the haunting note echoing through Jake. It was silly and even dangerous, but he pulled into the graveled area near the trees.

She got out of the car, and he followed her to stand gazing westward toward the ever-darkening sky. Though no breath of air stirred, currents seemed to roil about them.

She turned her gaze to him, her body amplifying and sending back the unfocused electricity that crackled silently all around them. Her eyes mirrored the dark, turbulent sky.

"Doesn't it feel like the whole world will explode if something doesn't give?" The timbre of her voice was pitched lower than normal, and her words sizzled along his skin, setting his nerve endings on fire, bringing hot blood rushing to his loins.

"Yeah, it does," he agreed.

"I don't mean just the storm. I mean all of it." She spun around, her back to him, facing the clouds that had begun to churn and tumble along the horizon. Her blond hair fanned across her back, lying softly on the fabric of her peach colored dress. "All of it," she repeated. "Charles Morton, Janelle Griffin, the disappearing dress, the threatening phone call, Farley Gates knocking out your head light. It feels like everything's going to explode any minute now, just like that storm is going to."

She ran one hand under her hair, lifting it off her neck, exposing the smooth, ivory skin above the scooped neck of her dress. The gesture was, he supposed, meant to cool her, but it had the opposite effect on him. That explosion she was talking about was getting closer and closer.

Without thinking about it—he certainly would have stopped himself if he'd thought about it—he raised his hands to the back of her neck, touching the silky skin, stroking each separate vertebra.

She tilted her head forward and moaned softly as if she found the pleasure as exquisite as he did.

God, he wanted her! He ought to move away from her, stop touching her. All he wanted was a release from the terrible tension in his body while she wanted a release from the tension in her heart, something he couldn't give her.

Instead of moving away, he bent closer to her and pressed his lips to her neck, tasting the warm saltiness of her.

That wasn't what he'd intended to do at all.

He wasn't sure what he had intended to do. The blood pounding in his ears and the world spinning around him and inside him muddled his thinking. All he seemed capable of doing was feeling.

She moved back against him...or he moved toward her. He couldn't be sure which and didn't really care. All he knew for certain was that her bottom pressing against him was almost enough to send him over the edge.

"The storm's about to break," she said, her voice husky with desire and with a dual meaning to her words.

His gaze followed the direction she pointed, to where the leaves in the tops of the trees were beginning to swirl. He knew she wasn't referring to that storm only. The storm between the two of them was moving in just as fast.

He felt the cool breeze on his face, though it wasn't refreshing. Instead, the contrast only made his body hotter.

He slid his arms around her from behind, holding her more tightly to him and nuzzling the side of her neck.

Stop, Jake!

The words screamed inside his head. If Rebecca would only say them, he could find the strength to stop, to take a cold shower, to regain his common sense.

But she didn't tell him to stop. Instead, she swayed against him, the pulse in her neck thudding rapidly against his lips. Didn't she know he couldn't give her the emotional connection she needed, couldn't offer anything but a momentary release from the storm raging outside and inside their bodies?

He pulled her blouse from the waistband of her skirt and laid his bare hands on her bare stomach.

The wind picked up, blowing her hair across his face, soft silk that flooded his senses with the intense fragrance of a field of brilliant flowers in the broiling heat of mid-summer.

"Rebecca," he whispered, his lips against her ear, and then he didn't know what else to say.

Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder boomed nearby.

"Yes," she said breathlessly. The word could have been a response to his unfinished comment or to the unspoken question between them or approval of what they were doing...or all three.

"God help us both, I want you, Rebecca. Right here in the middle of this public park, with Farley Gates liable to come along any minute and throw us in jail for obscene public behavior. Protect yourself from me. Tell me to stop. Tell me and I will. I swear I will."

She turned slowly in his arms and pressed her lips to his, the hunger in her kiss destroying any control he had left. Lightning struck so close it made the hair on his arms stand on end, but he barely heard the thunder over the thunder of his own heart.

The first big, heavy drop of rain splatted on his cheek, and, reluctantly, he withdrew his mouth from hers.