The Brother's Wife

He saw her knuckles whiten as her fingers tightened on the clasp of her purse. “I honestly don’t know what happened,” she said. “But I want you to know I had nothing to do with it.”

Jake glanced around his shabby office. “Well, that’s some comfort, isn’t it?”

The anger flashed in her eyes again, and this time she wasn’t so quick to suppress it. She stood. “It was a mistake for me to come here. I should have realized—”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “You probably should have. But as long as you’re here, you might as well finish what you started.”

She hesitated. A myriad of emotions flickered over her features, so quickly even Jake was hard-pressed to recognize them. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe it’s time we got everything out into the open. Ten years is a long time to carry a grudge, Jake.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“You think I don’t see the loathing and disgust in your eyes every time you look at me?” she asked. “You think I don’t know how much you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” he said. Although sometimes he wished he did. Especially at night. Lying alone in his bed. Remembering the way things once were. The way things might have been. “I don’t hate you,” he repeated.

She didn’t respond. Walking over to the window, she stared down at the street. Jake wondered what she saw. The overflowing Dumpster in the alley below? A drunk stumbling out of the bar next door?

Great little place you’ve got here, McClain.

He wondered what Hope saw when she looked at him. A thirty-five-year-old washed-up ex-cop? A man who had been willing to give up everything for the sake of a career he no longer even had? A failure?

Not a very pretty picture, he thought. Not at all what he had wanted or expected of himself. At least Hope hadn’t pointed out how badly he needed a client, as Victor Northrup had. Jake guessed he should be grateful to her for that.

Still gazing down at the street, she said, “Ten years ago, I made a decision about my life. About us. I didn’t think I could be a cop’s wife after what happened to my father. I was devastated by his death, and the thought of losing you the same way…the thought of our friends from the department showing up at my door one night to tell me you were never coming home…to have their wives try to comfort me while secretly feeling grateful it hadn’t been their husbands who’d been killed…”

She trailed off and drew a long breath. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it. So I broke off our engagement. I thought it would be easier that way, but it may have been the worst decision of my life.”

When she turned to face him, her eyes were like drowned violets, and Jake thought, almost in awe, that she looked close to tears. In all the time he’d known Hope, he’d only seen her cry once—the night she’d learned her father had been killed. She hadn’t cried at his funeral, and she hadn’t cried the day she broke off with Jake. Her resolve on both occasions had been frighteningly final.

But here she was now, ten years later, with tears in her eyes, telling him things he no longer wanted or needed to hear.

But as soon as the thought shot through his mind, he dismissed it. He must have imagined the tears and the remorse, because Hope’s eyes now were clear and more determined than ever, with not so much as a hint of regret shimmering beneath the surface.

“The point is…” she said, walking toward him. She stopped just short of his desk. Of him. “It may have been the worst decision of my life, and then again, maybe it wasn’t. Who’s to say what our lives would have been like if I hadn’t broken off our engagement. Who’s to say we would have stayed together anyway. I’ve always liked to believe things happen for a reason.”

He wanted to ask her what reason she’d had for marrying Andrew Kingsley, but he didn’t think he’d like her answer. So he said nothing. Instead he stood there feeling like a jerk, and he didn’t even know why.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I made a mistake ten years ago, it was my mistake to make and I’ve had to live with the consequences.” Her chin lifted stubbornly, a gesture that was all too familiar to Jake. “I won’t be made to feel guilty about it any longer.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Jake asked, his own anger stirring to life. “Trying to make you feel guilty?”

“This thing you have about the Kingsleys—”

“Was there a long time before I ever met you,” he finished for her.

“I know,” she said. “But can you honestly say you would have gone after Andrew the way you did if it hadn’t been for me? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t be willing to help me now if I were just Andrew Kingsley’s widow and not your ex-fianc;aaee?”

“Who’s to say?” Jake retorted, flinging her own words back at her. “The situation is what it is, Hope.”

“Ten years is a long time,” she said quietly.

An eternity, he thought. Although not all the years since their breakup had been bad ones. In fact, he’d had some pretty damned good times. He’d even come close to getting engaged again, but things hadn’t worked out. Unlike him and Hope, however, he and Melanie had managed to part as friends. They still got together occasionally for drinks. So why did he still feel this bitterness toward Hope? Why did he still feel that she’d betrayed him?

If she’d married anyone but Andrew Kingsley, would he still have felt the same way?

Somehow Jake didn’t think so, and the realization wasn’t one he was particularly proud of. His rivalry with Andrew went back to their childhood, and Hope had somehow gotten caught in the middle. She was still in the middle, even though Andrew was dead, and suddenly Jake saw how his bitterness toward Andrew, toward all the Kingsleys, had affected his life. Was still affecting him.

Hope was right, he thought. Ten years was a damned long time. People changed. He wished to hell he had. But here he was, still blaming the Kingsleys for everything that had gone wrong in his life. Still blaming Hope for marrying a man who could give her all the things Jake could never hope to provide.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she replied, but her gaze faltered uncertainly.

“Why did you marry Andrew? Was it because you loved him, or because you wanted to punish me for not leaving the department?”

After a split second of indecision, she shrugged. “Maybe it was a little of both,” she admitted. “Dad’s murder did something to me. I couldn’t seem to pull myself up out of the grief, and every time I saw you in your uniform, it reminded me of…his death. Of what could happen to you…” She trailed off and turned away. “I thought if you would just leave the department, everything would be all right. I could put what happened to Dad behind me and we could get on with our lives. When you refused, it was like a slap in the face. Being a cop was more important to you than I was.”

“I couldn’t understand why you were making me choose between my life’s work and you,” Jake said, trying to hide the lingering bitterness. “Being a cop was all I ever wanted to do. It wasn’t just what I did, but who I was.”

“I know that now,” Hope said. Her violet eyes lifted to meet his. “I probably knew it back then, but at the time, it didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was making sure I never went through that kind of pain again.”

An image came to Jake now, of the night her father had been killed, of the way he’d held her in his arms while she’d wept bitter tears, while she’d asked him over and over, “Why? Why? Why?” She’d clung to Jake desperately in those first few hours of grief, but by the time the funeral was over two days later, she’d already begun to pull away from him. Nothing he said or did got through to her. It was as if she’d erected a stone wall around her heart, a wall Jake didn’t have a prayer of scaling unless he took off his badge for good. And that, he hadn’t been willing to do. He had his pride, after all.

Pride was damn cold comfort on long, lonely nights, he thought now. But if he had it to do over again, he knew his decision would probably be the same. He wondered if Hope’s would be.

“A few months after our breakup,” she said, “I ran into Andrew at an art gallery in Overton Square, one of those little avant-garde places you always hated. I was surprised he remembered me. I’d only met him that one time at your father’s house, remember?”

Jake nodded grimly.

“We got to talking. He told me he was sorry about my father, and then he took me out for coffee. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but he started showing up at the school where I taught, waiting in the parking lot for my classes to be over, and then he would take me out to dinner—or to the theater, to all these wonderful places I’d never been to before. He was a very interesting man. Unlike anyone I’d ever known. He was charming and sophisticated and he made me laugh again,” she finished softly.

And don’t forget the money, Jake thought.

“So you fell in love with him,” he said, struggling to keep his voice neutral.

“I came to love him,” she said. “I thought he was exactly what I needed.”

“And was he?”

She glanced away. “For a while. But then…”

Jake waited for her to continue, but all she did was shrug. “It doesn’t matter anymore. All that’s behind me now. I’m only telling you this so we can come to some sort of understanding.”

He smiled ironically. “That the past is the past?”

“Exactly.” Her gaze met his again, and for a moment he thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, as if she hadn’t quite convinced herself. Then, with that same stubborn resolve he’d come up against more times than he cared to remember, she said, “So what do you say, Jake? Will you take this case? I don’t know what arrangements you may have made with Victor, but I’m willing to offer whatever you want.”

Jake doubted that very much. “Tell me what you know about this guy. This Michael Eldridge.”

Her features tightened. “I don’t know that much. Only that he says he’s a stockbroker from Houston, he grew up in a series of foster homes, and that he looks…very much like Andrew.”

“What was your gut reaction to him?”

Her startled gaze flew to his. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, what did your instincts tell you about him? You think he’s the real thing? An impostor? What?”

“I’m not sure,” Hope said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. If he didn’t know her better, Jake would have sworn he detected a note of fear. But why would she be afraid of this man? Hope wasn’t Iris Kingsley’s heir. She didn’t stand to lose a fortune even if this man did turn out to be Adam Kingsley.

So where did her fear come from? Jake mused. And then it hit him. He felt a sinking sensation somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Could it be that Hope was afraid of falling in love with Michael Eldridge? Because he looked so much like Andrew?

Jake stared down at her, and as if she’d read his thoughts, she glanced away guiltily.

“Iris is convinced he’s…her grandson,” she said.

“But what do you think?” Jake persisted, studying her closely.

“I think he might be,” she said, again in a tone that left Jake wondering. “I have to know the truth about him, Jake. I have to find out if he’s who he says he is. For Iris’s sake,” she added, though Jake wasn’t convinced her urgency stemmed solely from her concern for Iris Kingsley. There was something Hope wasn’t telling him about Michael Eldridge, but he knew better than to press. If Hope wanted him to know, she would tell him. If not, she would withdraw even more if he questioned her.

Proceed with caution, Jake told himself, but whether he liked it or not, he had to admit he was hooked. He would take the case, all right, but not just because he needed the money. Not just because it would give him a measure of satisfaction to be going behind Iris Kingsley’s back or to tell Victor Northrup what he could do with his offer.

He would take the case from Hope because if she was falling in love with this man, Jake wanted to make damn sure she wasn’t going to get hurt.

* * *

THE TREE-SHADED STREETS of midtown were bursting with color. Pink, fuchsia, and white azalea blossoms hung heavy on thick bushes that crowded the brick facades of post-World War II houses, while wide rows of tulips, jonquils, and hyacinths lined sidewalks and driveways.

As Hope drove past the Memphis State campus, a touch of nostalgia swept over her. Students lingered on the grounds, enjoying the warm, spring day. Couples strolled along the walkways, groups of friends clustered around benches, and a few brave sunbathers, wanting to get a jump start on their tans, lay shivering on blankets and beach towels.

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