MM03 - Saturday Mornings (7 page)

Her legs went rubbery, and she sank onto the toilet seat.
They're not sisters.
The words ripped through her again, tearing out her heart, her spirit, her will. She huddled there, head on her knees, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She feared if she moved she would break.

Time dissolved. She let herself float in the void.

“Margaret Leigh.” It was Aunt Bertha, banging the toilet door behind her. “Margaret Leigh, honey. Are you in here?”

Margaret Leigh didn't have the energy to move. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out all sound.

“Grace said you came in here about thirty minutes ago.” Aunt Bertha got down on her arthritic old knees and peeped under the stalls. She saw her niece's shoes. “Come on out, honey.”

Margaret Leigh rose slowly and pushed open the door. She didn't even know if she had any right to call the woman in front of her
aunt.

“Good Lord. You're as white as a sheet. Are you sick?”

“Yes.” She took her aunt's arm, as much for support as anything. “Let's go home.”

“Let me get my purse.”

o0o

They drove home in silence. In the dim light of the dashboard, Margaret Leigh felt pinched and drawn, fifteen years older than she was.

Habit carried her through. Habit helped her park the car, walk up the porch steps, and unlock her door. Out of habit she went into the den, turned on a lamp, and found a chair.

Aunt Bertha hovered in the doorway, anxious and frightened. “Maybe you should go to bed, honey.”

“We need to talk.”

Aunt Bertha twisted her hands together. “You probably ate something that made you sick.”

“No, I
heard
something that made me sick.”

Margaret Leigh lifted her head and looked at her aunt with huge, stricken eyes.

“Is Tess my sister?”

Aunt Bertha went pale. She pressed one trembling hand over her heart and caught the doorsill with the other.

Margaret Leigh squeezed her thighs together and pressed her arms hard against her side. Fear filled her.

“Is Tess my sister?” she repeated. “Is she?” The sound of her own voice was harsh in her ears. She seemed to float out of her own body and look down on the rising hysteria of the woman huddled below her.
“Is she?”

“Oh, dear Lord in heaven. What have I done?”

Aunt Bertha bowed her head and let the tears rain down her cheeks—tears of guilt, tears of sorrow, and finally, after years of carrying the heavy burden—tears of release.

Chapter Five

Margaret Leigh rose from her chair, feeling like a sleepwalker. She gripped her aunt's shoulders.

“Aunt Bertha. Look at me. I have to know.” She felt the shudder that ran through her aunt. “Is Tess my sister?”

Aunt Bertha lifted her tear-stained face. “No.” She walked over to the sofa and sat down.

The truth made Margaret Leigh stronger. She paced the room, charged with restless energy and the need to understand.

“Why was it kept a secret? Adoption is no crime.”

Aunt Bertha buried her face in her hands again and began to sob.

“Aunt Bertha?” She stopped beside the sofa and turned to face her aunt. “I assume I'm adopted. Or was Tess? Is Tess adopted?”

“No.” Slowly Aunt Bertha lifted her head. The truth was out. There was nothing to do but try and make Margaret Leigh understand. “You were the one. You were the one born out of wedlock, born in secret and given to Margaret to raise as her own... She loved you. She was a good mother. You had a good home.”

All the words Margaret Leigh was hearing sank in.
Born in secret. Given to Margaret.
The fear rose up again, threatening to smother her.

“Why was I born in secret, Aunt Bertha? Why was I given away?”

“You have to understand, Margaret Leigh. He was married.”

Aunt Bertha started sobbing again.

Margaret Leigh sank onto the sofa. The truth hung over the room like an ugly pall. Everything she'd believed in had crumbled at her feet. Everything she had lived was a lie.

“Who is my mother?”

Aunt Bertha cried louder.

“Aunt Bertha.” Margaret Leigh rose from the sofa, gripping the arms for support.
“Who is my mother?”

A shudder went through Aunt Bertha. When she lifted her face, Margaret Leigh saw the truth.

“I am.”

The words exploded inside Margaret Leigh. Aunt Bertha, who had preached virtue and goodness, who had railed against scoundrels and sin. Aunt Bertha, who had brought her up to be almost an ice maiden—Aunt Bertha was not her aunt at all. Aunt Bertha was her mother.

Rage came on the heels of shock. Margaret Leigh threw back her shoulders like a soldier going into battle. Then she marched from the room.

“Margaret Leigh,” Bertha called after her. “Where are you going?”

“I'm going to sin.”

“Wait. Let me explain.”

Margaret Leigh ran out the door and down the front steps. Blindly, she climbed into her car and turned the key. She was Bertha Adam's bastard. Conceived in sin. Born in secret. She didn't need any explanations. She didn't want any excuses. Lies. Everything in her life had been lies. She wasn't even Margaret Leigh Jones. She was an Adams. And Lord only knew what else.

She gunned the engine and drove away from the house. It didn't even seem like her house anymore. Nothing seemed real. Where had all her virtue gotten her? Nowhere. Like mother, like daughter. She might as well go out and vamp the whole damned town.

Her knuckles turned white on the wheel, and she found herself heading out of town. Where did a woman go to sin? She supposed most women knew at least a dozen places, a dozen ways, a dozen men. But she knew only one—Andrew McGill.

o0o

His house was dark when she arrived. She didn't care. She walked up the steps and knocked on his door. She didn't wait for an answer but knocked and knocked until her knuckles were bleeding.

Suddenly the door opened, and Andrew was there in bare feet and tight jeans, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

“Margaret Leigh. What in the devil...?” Her eyes were huge. She just stood on his front porch, gazing at him with those purple eyes. He took her elbow and gently drew her into the cabin. “Is someone sick? Is it your aunt?”

Margaret Leigh blinked at him slowly, and then she smiled. “My aunt? My aunt!”

She threw back her head and laughed. The sound sent shivers down Andrew's spine.

“Come over here, Margaret Leigh, and sit down.” He led her to the sofa and drew her down, keeping his arm around her shoulders. One hand massaged her upper arm, back and forth, up and down, over and over, touching, comforting.

“Where's your coat? Did you forget your coat, sweetheart?”

“No. I didn't forget anything.”

Her breathing was shallow, and she stared straight ahead as if she were seeing something that he could not.

“I'm glad you came to me.”

He moved his hand to her back, keeping up the massage, kneading the stiff muscles in her shoulders, caressing the tense line of her back.

“I'm a good listener, and I'm a pretty good fixer.” Silence from Margaret Leigh. “I have a sister and a brother, you know. Rick was always an independent cuss, but Jo Beth was a little blond slip of girl who was always getting into trouble.”

A shudder went through Margaret Leigh. Andrew kept talking and caressing.

“One time she climbed into the orchard next door to our house and stole some little green apples. She ate until she got sick. I took the punishment for her. I marched next door, holding my baseball cap in my hands, looking contrite, and I apologized to old man Clifford for stealing his apples.”

A soft sigh from Margaret Leigh. A slight relaxing. Andrew rubbed and talked, keeping his voice low and singsong, like music.

“He was a mean old cuss. Always looking over the fence and threatening to tell on us. Of course, Jo Beth and I deserved to be told on. We were always getting into mischief.”

Margaret Leigh slumped against him, letting her head loll on his shoulder.

“She's married now, married to a doctor in San Francisco. Colter Gray Wolf. He's Apache, a terrific athlete, and a fine horseman. We don't see them much. They'll come, though, after the babies are born. She's pregnant. Twins, the doctor says. They're trying to catch up with Rick and his wife, Martha Ann. They have two sets of triplets, three boys and three girls.”

Margaret Leigh burrowed closer to him, circling her arm over his chest. He held her tighter. “Any day now I'll be an uncle again. Always an uncle, never a father.”

Margaret Leigh stirred. Slowly she sat up. Her eyes were bright and her face was flushed.

“I’ll make you a father.”

“What?”

“I said, I'll make you a father. I'll have your baby.”

“Good Lord! What in the devil are you talking about?”

Her lips trembled. “You don't want me?”

He studied her through narrowed eyes. Something was going on. And he was going to find out.

“What are we talking about here? Marriage or sex?”

“Sex.”

He didn't blink an eye. He sat on the sofa pretending that the prim Miss Margaret Leigh Jones talked about sex every morning before breakfast and three times a day thereafter.

“You want to make love?” She didn't move. “Is that why you came out here, Margaret Leigh? To make love with me?”

She took a deep breath. “It's not love I want to make. It's lust.” She leaned closer. “Say you want me, Andrew.”

“I want you.”

“Then take me.”

“Do you know what you're asking?”

“I'm not asking for the moon, just a little old-fashioned sin.”

“Loving is not a sin.”

“The way I plan to do it, it is.”

She looped one arm around his neck and drew his head down to hers. Her lips were hot on his, burning, seeking, eager. Some sane part of his mind told him to pull away. Alarm bells sounded throughout his system. But with Margaret Leigh's mouth on his, he couldn't think rationally.

She was inexperienced. He could tell that. But she was willing to learn. No. More than willing. Desperate.

He fitted Margaret Leigh against him, kissing her deep and long and hard, doing what he'd wanted to do since the night she'd gone dancing in her blue taffeta dress. She was limp and pliant in his arms—too limp, too pliant.

He pressed his hands tightly against her back, and he could feel the slight tremors that ran through her. Gentling her with his hands, his mouth, he sought to comfort with touch, to heal with kisses.

He had no intention of taking her into his bedroom. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. Not that she wasn't desirable. Not that he didn't want her. But he had a certain code of honor he lived by, tarnished though it might be. When he was with a woman, he did it out of love, not lust.

That didn't mean he was altar bound with every woman he took to his bed. But he did feel a certain kind of love, a compelling need.

Margaret Leigh clung to him, her mouth open and receptive. She was sweet, sweeter than he'd imagined. With the smell of roses and lilacs in her hair and the taste of honey in her mouth, she was a tempting morsel. He felt himself drifting toward the edge of no return.

He broke contact and lifted his head. Her face was wet with tears.

“You're crying.” He touched her cheek gently, as if too much handling would shatter her.

She snuffled and tried to smile. “I don't care. Kiss me.”

He brushed his lips across her cheek.

“Not like that.” She grabbed his upper arms, her fingernails biting into his flesh.

His gaze swung from her face to her hands.

“Good Lord. You're bleeding.”

He pried one of her hands loose and held it, examining her knuckles. The skin was scratched and torn, bloody in places.

“What in the hell have you done?”

“You're cussing. I’ve never heard you cuss.”

“It's cussing time.” He grabbed her other hand. It was the same, battered and bleeding. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”

“I didn't come here to talk.” Her hands clenched into tight fists. “I don't want to talk.”

He studied her closely then, examined the bright glazed eyes, noticed the shallow breathing. Discreetly he slid two fingers over her wrist. Her pulse was racing. He was no doctor, but he'd heard enough medical talk from his brother-in-law to guess that Margaret Leigh was close to shock.

What do you do for somebody in shock? Keep them warm and quiet, he decided. But first he needed to take care of her hands.

“Wait right here, Margaret Leigh.”

He put a sofa pillow behind her back and propped her up like a broken doll. All the life seemed to have gone out of her.

“Where are you going?”

“To get bandages for your hands.” He stood up, keeping his movements easy and his voice low. “Stay right here. Don't move. I'll be right back.”

He hurried into his bathroom, gathering what he needed as quickly as possible. When he returned Margaret Leigh was exactly as he had left her, propped on the pillows, one hand on her knee and one lying on the sofa.

Her eyes flickered when he sat down beside her, but she didn't seem to be seeing him. He cleansed her wounds, then applied antibiotic salve and bandages, handling her as he would a newborn puppy. She was just about as helpless.

When he had finished, he set the supplies aside and took her hands in his.

“Margaret Leigh, I don't think you should drive. I'm going to take you home.”

“No!” She bolted from the sofa and began to pace. “I'm not going home. I can't go back. I don't even have a home. Not anymore. I can't go.... I can't face her.... I can't—”

“All right. It's okay.” Andrew went to her and pulled her into his arms, pressing her trembling body close against him.

“There now. Shh. It's all right.” He stroked her back, her hair, her arms, over and over. “You don't have to go. You can stay here. Shh. It's all right now.”

Gradually she began to relax. With a sigh, she leaned into his embrace.

“I have an extra bedroom. You can sleep there.”

She nodded, and he kept up the tender massage. Who did she not want to face? What had happened to make her think she no longer had a home? He approached the subject with caution.