Coming Home to You (21 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought this up now, when you’re still so upset about Henry. I didn’t get the chance to know him very well, but I know you love him. And I came to care for him very much.”

His arms tightened around her. “You’ve eased the pain by being here, by loving me.”

“What did Jane Logan tell you about his new family?”

“Only that the father’s a minister, and both he and his wife are young. Seems they want a big family and they plan on adopting other children and having some of their own.” She didn’t comment, but he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. “Sounds like the perfect situation for Henry, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but little consolation when your heart is breaking.”

He pushed back the pain as a memory came into his head of that day a few weeks back when he’d taken Henry to buy shoes and the child had insisted on the boots they’d eventually ended up getting. He’d told James in his garbled baby talk that he wanted to be like “Bet.” The boots were meant as a gift to Henry, but James felt he was the one who’d received the true gift that day.

“I’d give anything, Kate, to have adopted him, but a child deserves a stable home with a normal father and a normal life, not a father who lives in fear of having his life snatched away from him at any time.”

“I’m not sure that’s the real reason you’re reluctant. I think your unwillingness to adopt a child is a way of punishing yourself for your failure to help Bret. You’ve picked the thing you want most and then denied yourself the ability to have it.”

He frowned, wondering if she was right.

“I have to live by this decision,” he told her. “No adopted children. No biological children.” He thought again about their unprotected lovemaking.
“God, please tell me there’s no chance I got you pregnant tonight.”

“No, don’t worry about that.”

Her answer brought conflicting emotions of relief and disappointment.

“Kate, I…” This wasn’t going to be easy to say. “I love you and I want us to be together, but I don’t have anything to give you. I can’t give you kids, except the ones from Pine Acres who will come and go from your life. You’ll fall in love with them, think of them as your own, and then have to give them up—always. I can’t even give you my real name. Can you possibly be happy under those circumstances?”

“I have to be. I have no other choice.”

“But with another man you’d have a better life, a
normal
life.”

“I’ve belonged to you in my heart since I was nineteen, and I don’t want another man. So it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, because anything is better than losing you.”

“Then you’ll live with me?”

“Yes, I’ll live with you.”

“We have so many problems.”

“And I wish I could say I have answers for them, but I don’t. All I know is that as long as we’re together, I don’t care about anything else.”

His throat tightened. “Maybe we should go to Chattanooga,” he said quickly, before he lost his nerve.

She sat up and looked at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Are you ready for that?”

“No, but I can’t put off telling my family about
you much longer, and if we’re going to have any chance at a future, I’ve got to deal with the past. If I can find the courage.”

“Oh, Jamie.” She brought her hand to his cheek. “You can. I know you can.”

She held him and whispered words of love, and he took her there on the couch in an exquisite melding of body and spirit that was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Afterward they lay with arms and legs entwined, two pieces of a puzzle, a perfect fit.

Chattanooga. He hadn’t been there since the crash. At first he hadn’t gone because he’d feared recognition. Later he’d realized he couldn’t go because of the memories and pain that awaited him there. He’d hidden away in this house, thinking one day the pain would ease and he’d be able to go home. But it never had.

Now the time had come to face it. He didn’t know if he was strong enough.

T
HEY LEFT IN
J
AMES’S TRUCK
the next morning after securing a promise from Aubrey to take care of Sallie and the horses for several days. Although Kate urged James to call his mother and stepfather and reduce the shock of their arrival, he was adamant.

“Doing that will only cause them hours of grief while they wait for us,” he said. “I’d rather explain to them when we get there.”

They arrived in midafternoon, following a light rain that had dressed the air with mist broken by patches of returning sunlight. Kate had noticed James’s rising panic the closer they got to the city, and now perspiration beaded his face.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Nervous.” He pulled the truck into the parking lot of a convenience store, stopped and stared upward at his parents’ house. “Well, there it is.” The stone structure with its jutting turrets sat perched, like some horrendous bird, on the mountain ahead of them, at complete odds with the beauty around it. “I built it for my mother with the money I made off the first album. I was just a kid and I wanted her to live in a castle. What do you think of it?”

“Do they really need all that room for the two of them?”

“Probably not, but she loves the house.”

“Mmm.” She wondered how that was possible, given what she knew about the formidable Marianne Conner.

The narrow road up Lookout Mountain gave them a spectacular view of Chattanooga and the Tennessee River that wound through the city like a snake. A few minutes later they turned into the private drive leading to the Conner house and stopped at the security gate. A guard called the house and James talked briefly with the housekeeper. He got back in the car and for the first time in hours, smiled. “They’re a little excited I’m here,” he said.

“I guess so.”

“Ready?”

She took a deep breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

James’s mother didn’t wait for him to get to the door but met him in the stone courtyard at the front of the house. She was already weeping, and she flung herself into his arms when he stepped out. Kate stayed in the car, not wishing to intrude on their reunion.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” his mother said, drawing back to look at him. “I’ve prayed and prayed you’d come home someday. I have to call George at the club. And Ellen will want to see you.”

“Mom, not yet.” He faced the car where Kate sat unnoticed, steeling herself for the inevitable hurricane. He motioned for her to get out, and she came and stood beside him. He grabbed her hand and she clung to it in support. “I’ve brought someone I want you to meet. Mom, this is Kate. Kathryn Morgan. The lady who’s writing the biography.”

She watched his mother’s surprise turn to recognition,
then disbelief, then horror. At that moment Kate knew what it felt like to be someone’s worst nightmare.

His mother turned to James in panic. “Why have you brought this woman here?”

“Mom, I want her to talk to you.”

“What have you done?”

“I…she knows, Mom. She figured out what we did.”

“Oh, God, no! She’ll ruin us all!”

M
ARIANNE LOOKED DOWN
the dinner table at the sullen faces and wondered how they’d gotten through the meal. George was drinking and not even trying to hide it. Ellen, morose and sporting new bruises from the current bastard she lived with, hadn’t said two words since she’d arrived. And James was furious at all of them; it was evident from the way he picked at his food.

Marianne cleared her throat to get their attention. “Well, I suppose Ms. Morgan and I should talk and get it over with. The rest of you go somewhere and entertain yourselves.”

James loudly let it be known he wasn’t going anywhere, but the Morgan woman put a restraining hand on his arm and whispered something that silenced him. Finally he stood, and with a look at Marianne that warned her he’d be back if things got out of hand, he followed his stepfather and sister out of the cavernous dining room.

“Ms. Morgan…” Marianne had been prepared to tell the woman off the moment they were alone, but recalling James’s attentiveness to her all afternoon,
and his startling announcement that he was in love with the creature, Marianne decided it would be wise to ask a few questions first. “Would you like a glass of port?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Marianne went to the sideboard and poured them each a glass. They strolled, glasses in hand, looking at the eighteenth-century tapestries that covered the walls, tapestries Marianne had gone to a great deal of trouble to find to make the house bearable.

“Your furnishings are exquisite,” the woman said.

“And the house itself?” Marianne asked, curious at the answer she’d give.

“Awful. The ugliest house I’ve ever seen.”

Marianne laughed. She couldn’t help it. No one had dared say that to her face before, although they extracted great joy from saying it behind her back. “You’re very straightforward, Ms. Morgan. Can we be straightforward about the things we have to discuss?”

“Yes, Mrs. Conner. I came prepared to do that.”

“Good. Then let me start by admitting I’m very distressed that you’ve uncovered our little secret and equally distressed about this relationship you’ve undertaken with my son.”

The woman smiled, rather than appearing offended. “I’d be surprised if you were happy. You must be greatly concerned about what I plan to do.”

“Yes, I am.”

The woman walked silently for a moment, then said, “I don’t know. I’m in a very difficult situation, both professionally and personally. I don’t want to
hurt James, yet I have a commitment to his biography that I need to resolve.”

“I see.”

“I won’t reveal he’s alive, though. Nor will I tell anyone what you and Mr. Conner did. That’s not something you need ever worry about. For what it’s worth to you, I give you my word on that.”

“That surprises me a great deal.”

“I don’t believe you hurt anyone but yourselves by switching the records and concealing James’s survival. No good will come of telling the truth now.”

“I must say I’m finding this all very hard to accept. I’m particularly overwhelmed to learn James was helping you with your book even
before
you discovered his identity. It’s unlike him to lie to us.”

“Are you aware James discredited himself in those interviews?”

Marianne stopped, completely astonished. “No.”

“I didn’t think you were. As hard as you work to preserve his memory, I can’t imagine you’d go along with something so ridiculous.”

“How did he try to discredit himself?”

“By telling me wild stories about James Hayes and his countless encounters with women and booze. He wanted me to present him to the world as a drug addict and a drunk who never possessed a creative thought and took credit for music Webb Anderson composed.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Oh, yes, and I think you should know he went to great lengths to make sure I had a very favorable, almost saintly, image of Bret.”

Marianne sighed. That troubled her even more. “I can’t believe he thought he had to do that.”

“Can’t you? Mrs. Conner, I don’t want to hurt you, nor am I without compassion for Bret and what happened to him. I know that despite his problems he was your son and you must have loved him very much. But he was responsible for his own life, for the choices he made and for his own failures. So I can’t understand why, even though he’s dead, all of you are still making excuses for him and shouldering the blame that’s rightfully his. From what I’ve seen here today, he’s manipulating all your lives.”

Marianne started to disagree, but stopped. The woman was right. Bret still had a hold on all of them because of the guilt they felt about what they’d done.

She’d loved Bret as much as she loved James and Ellen, but she couldn’t deny there’d been a weakness in her younger son. In Bret’s eyes, the blame for every unpleasant thing that happened to him belonged to someone else.
It’s not my fault
. How many times during his childhood had she heard him say that when he did something wrong? And they’d all allowed him to get away with it.

Even as an adult, when he lost job after job because of his hostile attitude, he always claimed the boss hated him or else someone got him fired out of jealousy. Never did he take responsibility.

“Would you like grandchildren, Mrs. Conner?” the woman asked, startling her.

“Grandchildren?” Marianne could barely say the word.

“I want children. James’s children. And perhaps even some adopted ones. But he doesn’t believe he
deserves any. He started Pine Acres and the other ranches to perpetuate Bret’s name in a good way. I also think the reason he chose those specific charities was so he could have personal contact with children.”

“I didn’t…I never realized.”

“After Bret’s death, James gave up his dream of a house full of his
own
children and condemned himself to a solitary life on his little farm.”

“I suppose I’ve allowed myself to believe he lives alone out of fear someone will recognize him.”

“He’s convinced himself of that, too, but I think it’s more punishment than fear of discovery. Despite what he says, he wants children very badly, and it’s a crime for him not to have any. He’s so good with them.”

“Is he?”

“Oh, yes, he’s wonderful.”

“Like his father,” Marianne said, unable to conceal her smile. That had been what attracted her to David, the easy way he had with children.

They came to the doors of the sun parlor. Marianne opened them and went through, needing the warmer brighter colors of the haven she’d created in this dark and depressing house. She crossed to the table by the window and sat down, motioning for the woman to take the chair across from her. The lights of the city punctuated the darkness below them. A barge moved slowly along the river.

“You’ve surprised me, Ms. Morgan, and I’m not easily surprised. You’re telling me things about my son I didn’t know, things that upset me very much.”

“You can’t blame yourself for not knowing. James
doesn’t
want
you to know. He’s not willing to tell you how badly he hurts.”

“Why, then, are
you
telling me?”

“Because he loves you, and he needs you to know so he can begin to heal. He wants to put Bret’s death behind him, but he’s not sure how to go about it. I’m convinced that subconsciously he wanted me to find out who he is, and that’s why he gave me so many subtle clues. He revealed his identity in a hundred different ways.”

“But it doesn’t make sense for him to want to expose the truth after so many years.”

“It doesn’t make sense to us, but in James’s mind, it’s a way to force something to happen. For years he’s confined himself to this emotional prison he’s created, and he hasn’t let himself out of it. But now there’s an external force—me—with the power to do the job. By allowing me to discover his secret, he handed me the key to his prison door.”

“I’m beginning to understand.”

“James knows he should have died instead of Bret, and that only a twist of fate put his brother on that plane. He also feels a tremendous amount of guilt for having assumed Bret’s identity.”

A tear formed at the corner of Marianne’s eye, but she compelled it by sheer will not to fall. “I was only trying to save him, to give him a chance to start over.”

“I know, and it took incredible love and strength to do what you did. I’m not sure I could have done it, had they been my sons.”

“Once we’d switched the records, it was too late to go back.”

“Did you know about Bret’s drug use before then?”

“Lord, no. If I had, if I’d known they’d find drugs in his body when they did the autopsy, I never would have let the world believe it was James.”

“I don’t think James really cares about the drugs. He’s dealing with too many other issues.”

“Is he so unhappy?”

“Only because he can’t get beyond what happened that night or his inability to help Bret. I’m hoping, once he realizes he did all he could for his brother, he’ll find happiness. He enjoys his business and the freedom of his new identity. He doesn’t miss the life he gave up.”

“Then what I did wasn’t all for nothing.”

“No, I think you and your husband probably saved him, just as you intended.”

Marianne took a calming sip of wine and stared out into the darkness. This woman truly seemed to care about James, to want him to be happy. But could they really trust her? So much depended on it.

“This book of yours,” Marianne said. “You’re required to finish it?”

“Yes, although I haven’t come up with a way to be honest or complete in what I say and still protect James’s identity. I need to figure that out.”

“Could you not abandon it?”

“I wish I could, but I don’t see how I can without making the people close to me suspicious. And to be truthful, I
want
to finish it. You, more than anyone, might understand my reasons.” Her face softened. “I love him, Mrs. Conner, and I can’t stand the idea of people thinking badly of him. This book can’t right
all the wrongs that have been done to him, but it can remind the world how special he is. With all my heart, I believe that.”

There was such conviction in her voice that Marianne was inclined to believe it, as well.

W
HEN
B
RET DIED
, James had assumed that Bret’s few belongings had been stored up in the attic. He was surprised now to find them displayed in the bedroom he’d used while he was still living at home, as if Bret was away and expected back anytime.

Sports trophies and school pictures decorated the bookcase and the walls. A scrapbook lay on the desk, opened to a yellowed newspaper clipping of the third-grade district spelling contest, in which Bret had been a finalist.

This room held many memories. Good memories. And James smiled as he sat on one of the twin beds and slowly turned the pages of the photograph album he’d found. He came upon a shot of him and Bret with their arms around each other’s shoulders, standing in front of one of the band’s buses. He remembered this one, taken the summer after Bret graduated from high school; he’d joined James on tour. They’d been close then, not only brothers but friends. Why, he wondered, couldn’t things have stayed like that?