The Man She Left Behind (28 page)

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Authors: Janice Carter

BOOK: The Man She Left Behind
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Besides, the private investigation had only shown there was no evidence of someone with the name Janet Bradley. It hadn’t proved she wasn’t Leigh’s birth mother. Maybe it was time he dropped his petty anxieties about competing with Janet for Leigh’s attention.
That’s what it boils down to, buddy, like it or not. You’re jealous and don’t like having to share her.
Yet Leigh seemed to have no fears or questions about sharing him with Jamie. He felt certain of that, although it wasn’t an issue they’d ever discussed. Too busy discussing our own neurotic selves, that’s why. Damn. How had he let things get so out of control?
Just like the old days, he thought.
When you stepped outside the fray and watched, instead of taking charge of your life.
How different it all might have been if—No, he wouldn’t do that to himself. It was self-defeating and selfpitying. As he’d been saying all along to Leigh, the past is past.
Get on with the future.
Sound advice he really ought to take.
Decision made, Spencer felt free to take his time now. He’d stop in at Leigh’s on the way home and make plans for the evening. They’d need some private quiet place. Maybe here, he thought, knowing Sam would heartily approve. And the rustic charm of the cottage was evident, now that it was cleaned.
Most of the knickknacks had been packed away. Lord knew what he’d do with them. Jamie would want some things; the rest they could donate to the local church for future bazaars. Lots of bazaars! Spencer grinned. Sam had been a pack rat of the first order. Still, it had been unexpectedly generous of him to leave his place and what little money he had in trust for Jamie.
And if Jamie, when he was eighteen, could work out a good deal with the National Park Service, he just might get enough out of the place to pay his way through college. At least, that was how Spencer hoped it would go. But one could never tell with teenagers. The irony of the thought brought another grin.
I think Jamie’s got twice as much common sense at fourteen as I had at nineteen.
Spence also realized that two weeks ago this realization probably would never have occurred to him. Amazing how much had changed in so short a time.
He closed the door behind him and headed for Leigh’s place. Jamie should arrive anytime, but since the cleanup had been completed, Spencer left a note for him along with a tenner to go out with his friends. The kid deserved a break.
“She’s not here?” he parroted foolishly moments later.
Janet Bradley shook her head sympathetically. “I’m sorry, but she had a luncheon date with old friends in the village.”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“No, but she did say she had some business about the house to do up in Hatteras. If she had time, she planned to drive up to meet with her real-estate agent. I think she’s had a good offer on the house.”
Spencer turned his head. He didn’t want Janet to see what he was feeling—sick at heart. He swore silently. He didn’t even have the agent’s last name to call him, and Janet sure didn’t seem to know much. How could he get hold of Leigh before she signed any papers on the house? He looked at Janet through the screen door again.
“So, she didn’t leave me a note? I mean, it’s not like her to just take off like that.”
“Was she expecting you to call?”
He shrugged, feeling like an idiot. Of course Leigh was exactly the kind of person to take off, especially if she was still upset with him. And why wouldn’t she be? He hadn’t called her. All he’d done was assume she’d be there—waiting as usual. The same thing he’d done fifteen years ago—assume she’d come around. Assume she’d see things his way in the end. Because she usually had—until the prom debacle. Spencer slammed his palm against the door frame.
Janet jumped back, covering her mouth with her hand. “Goodness!” she gasped.
Spencer took a deep breath.
Calm down, fella. Get a plan together and don’t go berserk on the poor woman.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Look, do you know the last name of the real estate agent in Hatteras? That Evan guy?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“Okay, then this is what I’m going to do, Janet. When Leigh gets home or if she phones, please tell her I want to meet her tonight at Sam’s place. Say, about nine.” He paused then, taking in Janet’s expectant face. “Uh, I’m planning a little, you know, romantic dinner for two. To make up for some things.”
She smiled. “I understand.”
“So if she calls, tell her I’m heading up to Hatteras hoping to head her off at Evan’s place—wherever it is. Tell her please not to sign any papers on the house until she talks to me. Tell her...tell her it’s a matter of life and death.”
She frowned. “It is?”
“Yeah, it is for me. Okay? Do you have all that? Should I write it down?”
“Oh, no, Spencer. Heavens, I can remember that.”
When he was climbing back into his truck, he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had about leaving such a complicated message with Janet. He shifted into reverse and was halfway down the drive when he squealed to a stop.
How can I have been so stupid?
He stared at the For Sale sign on the front lawn, memorizing the Hatteras phone number. He briefly considered going back up to the house to simply telephone, but instinct told him not to waste precious time explaining any more to Janet.
 
THE TELEPHONE RANG just as Spencer’s truck backed onto . the main road. Janet closed the big glass door behind him and, tucking the note Leigh had left for him into her dress pocket, headed for the kitchen.
A youthful voice on the line asked for Leigh. “I’m sorry, but she’s at a luncheon.”
“Oh.” The voice fell.
“Can I take a message?”
“Sure. Uh, this is Jamie McKay calling. Spencer McKay’s son? Anyway, I want to leave a message for my dad, but I can’t get hold of him at my Grandpa’s place. No phone there.”
“Ah. Well, your father was here looking for Leigh. He just left.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“I believe he had some business to take care of in Hatteras.”
“He did? Gee, I was supposed to meet him at Grandpa’s about one-thirty.”
Janet checked her watch. “Well, you’re late. It’s going on that now.”
“I know, that’s the problem. See, I had a call from our lawyer and he needs to see us today. I don’t know what to do...”
“Maybe you can see the lawyer yourself.”
“I guess so. If you see Dad again, could you tell him where I am? Or if Leigh shows up soon, could you tell her?”
“Yes, I can do that. So let me make sure I’ve got this right. You won’t be going to your Grandpa’s, after all.”
“That’s right. I’ll wait at home for him.”
“Fine. I’ll pass that on.”
When Janet placed the phone on the table. she was smil ing. If she followed all the steps very carefully, things just might work out. Spencer was gone. Now Jamie was gone. Sam Logan had already left all on his own, and for that, she blessed him. Soon she’d have her daughter all to herself.
Just the way I wanted.
 
LOOKING BACK. Leigh could almost pinpoint the moment she decided to break her promise to Janet.
Partway through the strawberry shortcake and iced coffee, she suddenly was tired of hearing both Trish and Faye rambling on about everyone who’d ever lived in or left Ocracoke. They’d ticked off the names of classmates in their years and, because Ocracoke School had been so small and included all the grades in one frame building, had started in on Leigh’s class. She didn’t mind that they did most of the talking, for it had given her the chance to daydream about Spencer. And she didn’t object to their somewhat unsubtle references to “that terrible tragedy, dear,” or poor old Sam Logan who’d died penniless.
Penniless but content.
And she’d clenched her teeth and forced a smile when Trish gave her credit for forgiving Jen Logan.
“It was the talk of Ocracoke for some years, I tell you,” Trish said. “Everyone knew she’d set her sights on Spencer. Didn’t surprise me when I heard Mary Ann Burnett was up to her tricks there, too.”
Guess I was the last to know,
Leigh thought. The fact that she didn’t care was reassuring. Faye hadn’t done as much talking as Trish, filling in only on the reminiscing. But then, she’d been away from Ocracoke even longer than Leigh and had been oddly vague when questioned about her recent years.
Later, when Leigh was helping take dishes into the kitchen, Trish had told her, sotto voce, not to mind Faye. “She’s had it tough. Maybe you haven’t heard, but poor Faye’s spent most of the past twenty years in and out of psychiatric hospitals.”
Leigh had been genuinely shocked.
“Chronic depression, it seems. She always had what we used to call a flighty way about her. High-strung, you know.” Trish bustled about the room. “We don’t talk about it publicly. To spare her feelings, like. But she’s been on some new medication the past year and we’re hoping she won’t have to go back.”
“Will she stay here with you?”
Trish pulled her head back. “Lord, no! She has a nice little apartment in Elizabeth City, not too far from the hospital—just in case there’s a relapse, you see.”
They picked up their replenished tumblers of iced coffee and joined Faye on the veranda. Something in the older woman’s pale face tugged at Leigh.
“Well, I have some rather unexpected news of my own,” Leigh announced, sitting between the two sisters. And without thinking more than a second about Janet’s request, she told them her story.
They were astonished and full of questions, which Leigh had to ward off eventually with a raised hand. “One at a time,” she begged.
“So this is the woman you introduced as an old family friend the other day,” Trish said. “And you say she has no proof?”
“No written proof. But the evidence she has is darn convincing. She knows some very personal details about my adoption—even about the blanket I was wrapped in.”
“The ducky blanket,” Faye murmured.
“You know about that, too?”
“You showed it to me once, when you were about six or seven.”
“Was it in the leather valise?”
A frown wrinkled Faye’s brow. “I don’t remember where it was. I think it was just on a shelf. You still took it to bed with you in those days. Your mom and dad were trying to wean you away from it.” She laughed. “I do recall one time your mother asked me to pretend I didn’t know where it was. She said she’d washed it and put it away for you.”
“Well, that blanket was from my birth mother. And Janet described it for me before I even pulled it out of the suitcase.”
“What an amazing story!”
Leigh smiled at Trish’s excitement. “I think so, too.”
“Did she know the story about coming home from the hospital with your name pinned on your sleeper?” Faye asked.
“Heavens!
I
didn’t know that story!” Trish exclaimed. “How did
you
know it, Faye?”
“Why, from Leigh of course. When I baby-sat her. Sometimes we’d play ‘adoption’ together. Remember, Leigh?”
Leigh smiled and shook her head. “Not that part, though I suppose I must have told you lots of things. So you see,” she continued, “although Janet doesn’t actually have a piece of paper proving she’s my mother, how else could she have known these things? I mean, she’s never been to Ocracoke before. And even if she’d come as a tourist, no one in the village except for Faye and Jen even knew those things.”
“So what are your plans now, Leigh? Are you still in a hurry to sell?” There was a twinkle in Trish’s eye.
Now’s your chance to let the whole village know at once. Save you a lot of explaining.
“My plans aren’t definite yet, Trish. But I want to get to know Janet much better. I have an apartment and a job in New York to take care of, but I’d like to spend the summer here at least. Pick up old friendships, you might say.”
Trish clapped her on the shoulder. “Good for you. That’s the spirit.”
Faye smiled quietly and played with the spoon in her drink. “What does she look like, this Janet?”
Leigh thought for a minute. “She’s tall like me and has my coloring, although we don’t really have the same features at all.”
“Maybe you take after your father,” Trish said. “Has she talked about him?”
“No, she’s never mentioned him at all. I mean, I know she was young when she got pregnant and she implied that her folks wanted nothing to do with her afterward. I haven’t really wanted to press for too many details because we’ve only had a few days together. But I’ll ask her soon.”
“When can I meet her?” Faye asked.
“Why don’t the two of you come for coffee in the morning? I’ll make it a surprise.”
Then there’ll be no headaches,
Leigh thought. “Actually I have a photograph of her, Faye. But it’s an old one. She’s holding me in front of the home where I was born. It’s in my wallet.”

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