Lost Cause

So he figured he’d take a ride cross-country to Washington state, maybe stay a couple of weeks, talk to this Carrie and…Suzanne? yeah, Suzanne, a few times, hear the real story.

Then figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life that would keep him from flying over the guardrail the next time, into the welcoming darkness.

CHAPTER TWO

REBECCA WILSON LOOKED forward to this home visit. She’d scheduled it almost three weeks ago, so she had reread the file this morning. Once again, she liked what it said about Suzanne Chauvin, especially her open attitude about what age or gender or race of child she’d take. So many people acted as if they were shopping for a garment of a particular color and style.

“We’d consider a girl up to two and a half,” they’d say. Two and three-quarters would apparently be too old. “We’d like fair skin. Nobody in our family can even tan! Blond would be great. And blue eyes.”

She could tell that they were really envisioning a baby. Their ideal. Which left her wondering: Would they be disappointed by a healthy, happy two-year-old with brown hair, hazel eyes and a golden tint to her skin?

Oh, well. Rebecca understood the desire to adopt a child who looked as if she could be yours. Nonetheless, she was grateful for the occasional parents-to-be who just wanted a kid to love and didn’t care if people could tell their children were adopted.

She glanced again at the map of Edmonds in the Thomas Guide that lay open on the seat beside her. If she turned up ahead…

Edmonds was so pretty. Climbing a hillside rising from Puget Sound were neighborhoods of a mix of older and new homes, many on lots terraced by stone or cement retaining walls. Even several of the more modest houses had peekaboo views of the Sound, blue and choppy today, the green-and-white Washington State ferries that arrived and departed every forty-five minutes, and the Olympic Mountains on the other side, already white-capped in mid-October. Rebecca wished she could afford to live here, rather than in her small condo in Lynnwood within earshot of I-5 and night-and-day traffic.

But social work of any kind didn’t pay that well, even though she had a master’s degree. It would help if she’d stayed put rather than changing jobs, but after three years of dealing with an overwhelming caseload of abused and neglected children and their horrifically dysfunctional families, she hadn’t been able to handle the stress anymore. What she’d done there had been so important, she felt guilty for quitting.

She kept telling herself this job was a break. A vacation. She’d be ready again someday to rescue children from the parents they loved desperately despite the blows and the filthy homes and the nights huddled alone because Mommy hadn’t come home. But not yet.

She turned onto the street and looked eagerly ahead. Halfway down the block…yes, it was the gray rambler with white trim, dwarfed by the two-story next door. The house was friendly-looking, Rebecca decided immediately, before laughing at herself. Way to jump to conclusions!

As she approached from one direction, she noticed a gleaming black-and-chrome motorcycle coming from the other way, the powerful roar out of place on this quiet street. The rider was going slowly, just as she’d been, as if also scanning house numbers. When she pulled to the curb, he did the same, swerving onto her side of the street and stopping with the front tire of his bike only a few feet from her front bumper.

She turned off the engine and checked in the rearview mirror to be sure her makeup was intact and her shoulder-length, copper-red hair was smooth. As she reached for her briefcase, she saw him set the kickstand and swing his leg over the back of the bike. He pulled the helmet from his head and hung it over the handle bar. Although he wasn’t obvious about it, she had the feeling he was watching her, which made her nervous. Without standing next to him, she couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think he was a huge man. Still, there was something…tough about him. His dark, straight hair was shaggy, his blue jeans and black leather jacket well worn, his gaze narrow-eyed and…well, she couldn’t tell whether he was wary, hostile or just naturally unfriendly looking.

Was he Suzanne Chauvin’s boyfriend? She’d denied having a serious relationship in the questionnaires she’d filled out.

Rebecca hesitated, then got out. For Pete’s sake, it was broad daylight! And just because a man rode a Harley-Davidson—at least, she thought that’s what it was—didn’t mean he was a Bandido or Hells Angel.

Nonetheless, she circled the back of her car so that she wasn’t too near him on the sidewalk. She gave a vague, pleasant nod in his direction, then started toward the driveway.

His voice followed her. “Are you Suzanne?” He sounded doubtful.

“Me?” She turned, startled. “No. Is that who you’re looking for?”

“Yeah.” He nodded toward the house. “This is the address I have for her.”

“It is her address.” Should she have told him that? “If you don’t know what she looks like, I guess you’re not an old friend.”

A nerve jumped in his cheek. “She’s my sister.”

She gaped. “Your…what? But…”

“I don’t know what she looks like. Yeah.” His mouth twisted. “Long story. Do you know her?”

“Not yet. I’m here to interview her.” None of his business, she reminded herself. He didn’t know what his own sister looked like. Sure. “Well.” Out of her element, she said, “Shall we go to the door together?”

He didn’t move. “No, go ahead. She’s not expecting me.”

O-kay. She gave another nod his way and continued up the driveway. To her annoyance, she was too conscious of his gaze to assess the house or yard as she walked, or to organize her thoughts.

She rang the bell, and the door opened so quickly, Suzanne had to have been hovering nervously in the entryway. She looked just like the photo in the file, pretty and petite with warm brown eyes and thick, glossy dark hair bundled on the crown of her head with a scrunchy.

Smiling, Suzanne said, “Hi, you’re Ms. Wilson?”

“Rebecca, please.” They shook hands. “What a nice neighborhood! And I see you have a bit of a view.”

Suzanne laughed. “That’s a generous way of describing the fact that if you stand at the very edge of the porch and crane your neck you can see a sliver of blue.” Her gaze went past Rebecca. “I wonder who that is.”

Rebecca looked over her shoulder. “The guy with the bike? He says…” Wow, she felt silly even saying this. “He says he’s your brother.”

She could never have expected the reaction she got. A tiny whimper escaped the woman who’d greeted her with such friendly poise and Suzanne gripped the door frame, face suddenly pale. “My…brother?” she whispered.

“Well, he said you’re his sister, but he doesn’t know what you look like. I didn’t take him seriously….”

As if she didn’t hear her, Suzanne brushed past Rebecca and hurried down the steps and then the driveway.

The man, who’d been half sitting on his bike, legs casually crossed, rose to his feet.

“Lucien?” Rebecca heard Suzanne say, voice high-pitched, shocked.

“So I’m told. Gary now.”

Rebecca watched, openmouthed, as Suzanne Chauvin threw her arms around the dark stranger. Even from this distance, she could see that he was startled and didn’t know what to do. After a moment, he awkwardly lifted his arms from his sides and patted her back as she apparently sobbed on his chest.

The scene was so bizarre, Rebecca didn’t quite know what to do. Leave and politely deny the application? Wait to hear an explanation? She was fairly new at this, but she’d never had an applicant so completely lose interest in her arrival for a home study. Anyone who wanted to adopt knew that this visit was make-or-break.

Finally, sniffling, Suzanne stepped back. She and the man spoke for a moment, the words indistinguishable to Rebecca. Then she gasped and turned toward Rebecca. She said something else to him, and finally they both came up the driveway to where Rebecca waited on the porch.

Tendrils of dark hair had pulled from the knot on Suzanne’s head, and her face was blotchy and wet. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “You must think I’m crazy!”

The thought had crossed Rebecca’s mind, but she murmured, “No, no.”

“I said in my application that my parents died when I was young and my siblings and I got split up. Lucien…” She glanced quickly at the man next to her. “Gary was adopted out. I haven’t seen him since he was three years old.”

“No wonder you didn’t recognize each other! How on earth did you find her?” Rebecca asked him.

His mouth tilted in what might have been a smile. “She found me.”

“Months ago,” his sister filled in. “But he said he wasn’t interested in a reunion, so I tried to resign myself to never seeing him again. And then…and then…”

“He showed up out of the blue.” Rebecca’s eyes met his, completely unrevealing. Why had he changed his mind? Why decide to just drop out of the sky like this?

“Yes.” Suzanne dashed at her tears. “Oh, gracious! I so wanted to impress you, and then I fall apart like this!”

“Getting a little emotional is certainly understandable, under the circumstances.” So why wasn’t he getting emotional? she wondered. “Suzanne, meeting your brother for the first time in…”

“Twenty-six years.” New tears filled her eyes.

“…twenty-six years should take precedence,” Rebecca said. “Why don’t you and I reschedule?”

“Oh, I can’t inconvenience you like that!” Suzanne Chauvin was trying to hide her alarm, but failing.

Rebecca understood that convenience wasn’t what they were talking about. Suzanne feared she’d just blown her big opportunity.

Rebecca smiled. “No, I really mean it. You’ll be torn two ways if you and I try to sit down to talk. I can easily come back next week. Maybe even later this week. Let me check my schedule. We can talk tomorrow. Okay?”

Suzanne smiled shakily and then gave her what appeared to be an impulsive hug. “Bless you. This is…” her gaze strayed to the impassive man standing beside her, “so amazing.”

“Well.” Rebecca smiled at him, too. What the heck. “Nice to meet you, Mr….?”

“Lindstrom.” He held out a large hand. “Ms….?”

“Wilson,” she replied, as she clasped his hand.

They shook. “Pleasure,” he murmured.

“I’ll call,” Rebecca promised, and left without ever going in the house.

As she drove away, she reflected on what the odds were that her appointment would coincide with the arrival of a long-lost brother.

She briefly wondered if the scene could have been staged, but remembered the shock and blaze of joy on Suzanne Chauvin’s face and dismissed the possibility. Besides, what would have been the point?

No, it was just one of those things.

A minor irritant, like the red light flashing at a railroad crossing when she was in a hurry.

Rebecca smiled. Hey, an optimist would say it was serendipity!

THE REDHEAD REMINDED Gary unpleasantly of his ex-wife. She was prettier than Holly Lynn, and also—judging from her freckles—a genuine redhead, which Holly Lynn wasn’t, as he’d discovered the first time he undressed her. No, it wasn’t the hair that brought back thoughts of his little-lamented ex, but rather the judgmental, holier-than-thou air both wore as if it were Chanel No. 5.

He wondered why she was interviewing Suzanne. Was she a pollster? Loan officer? Journalist? He leaned toward the loan officer explanation, because Suzanne had seemed damned anxious not to offend her.

Ah, well. What difference did it make what the redhead did for a living? Although… He turned and watched her circle her car. She did have spectacular legs, he decided with appreciation.

The woman beside him—his sister—said, “Come in, Lucien. Gary. Oh, I can’t believe you’re here!”

She’d taken him aback with that sobbing embrace. He didn’t think any woman had ever cried on his shoulder before. Certainly not Holly Lynn, who’d departed hissing and spitting but dry-eyed.

He nodded and stepped into the small living room ahead of her. “I hope this wasn’t a bad time.”

“Not if she meant it about rescheduling. And I think she did. Don’t you?”

What the hell did he know about it?

“Sure,” he said with a shrug.

She shut the door and they stood there for a minute, appraising each other.

He saw a dark-haired, dark-eyed, attractive woman whose face gave him a weird, uncomfortable sense of familiarity. It wasn’t that he was seeing his own face. No, while they did bear a superficial resemblance, their coloring similar, he didn’t think it was that.

That wisp of memory, the dark-haired, laughing woman, slipped in and out of his consciousness and he felt a jolt. There it was. She was that woman. Except of course she couldn’t be.

“Do you look like our mother?” he asked abruptly.

Tears brimmed in her eyes again and she nodded. “And you could be Daddy. It’s…extraordinary. Seeing you like this. You have his nose, the shape of his face, his eyes….”

The observation felt like a rough-hewed shim wedged in somewhere, the potential for slivers both making him wary and irritating him. Last he knew, his nose and eyes were his, not someone else’s.

But he knew his discomfort was irrational. Why was he here if not to figure out where he came from and whether he wanted to have any ties at all to these two women who were close blood relatives? So, okay, now he knew he looked like his father.

Check.

“I’m being a terrible hostess,” she exclaimed. “Can I get you something to drink? Why don’t you come back to the kitchen? We can talk there.”

What he’d have preferred was a beer, but he accepted a glass of lemonade and followed her to the kitchen table, sitting and looking at her some more.

“Your sister…our sister,” he corrected himself. “Does she look like you?”

“Yes, amazingly so. Except Carrie is obviously younger. She was the baby, you know.”

He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t remember much. There was a woman. Uh, and a skinny dark-haired girl.”

“Me.”

Wow. Yeah, he guessed it had been her.

“And the baby.”

“Carrie.”

“She and I went to a foster home together. Right?”

“Right. It was awful.” Remembered grief filled her eyes. “You were sobbing, your face pressed to the car window….”

God. No wonder he’d never been all that eager to recall his oldest memories. That one…well, a twisting in his gut told him it was filed somewhere in his head. Just like her face, he recognized her description of that scene.

“So, you were the lucky one, huh?” he said with what he knew to be insolence.

Her expression shadowed again, but he wasn’t so sure it was his tone that caused it. “I suppose so. Uncle Miles and Aunt Marie… Mom’s sister and her husband,” she explained. “They already had two kids, and didn’t see how they could take in three more. Since I was six and had the best sense of what was happening, they felt…obligated.”

The tiny pause was telling, and Gary had his first hint that maybe she hadn’t been so lucky after all. Or maybe she just had a sob story prepared so he couldn’t cry her a river.

“I think they truly believed you would both be adopted quickly,” she continued. “You were so young. I hoped all those years that you’d been able to stay together. I was upset when I found out you were adopted separately. And that you didn’t get a home for over a year after our parents died.”

“So that part was true?” His voice came out rough, as if it needed oiling. He didn’t like thinking about any of this.

“Your adoptive parents told you that much?”

He nodded. “They said my mom and dad were killed in a car accident.”

“It was so sudden. They’d gone to a play, and we were home with a babysitter. I remember a police officer coming to the door.” She seemed to look right through him. “The doorbell woke me and I thought, Why would Mommy and Daddy ring instead of coming in? So I got out of bed and went to the window. I can still see the police car in the driveway, lights flashing. Red and blue and white, hurting my eyes. I think maybe I knew.” She fell silent.

Questions crowded his tongue, but he found he was hesitant to ask any of them. He didn’t like being the supplicant, and that was a little what he felt like right now. Please, please, please, tell me about my mommy and daddy. The questions tangled together, too, until he didn’t know how to lay them out singly. How did you ask what kind of people those parents were? Whether they loved their children? Whether he’d be a different man if they’d lived?

“I have pictures,” Suzanne said, as if reading his thoughts. “But first… What changed your mind? Why now? Why not then?”

“I never wondered much about my real parents.” Not true—once he hit ten or twelve, he quit wondering. Gary shrugged. “If I didn’t remember them or you, what would meeting you mean?” Seeing her expression, he elaborated, “I grew up the way I grew up. Nothing will change that.”

He could tell from her face that he hadn’t improved on his first bald statement.

“We’re family,” she said, as if the fact was so obvious he was a simpleton for not having seen it from the first. “We share blood. Genes. Not to mention early experiences and memories.”

“You have more of both of those than I do.”

“I know,” she agreed. “And I hope you’ll let me share what I do remember with you.”

Fair enough. That’s why he’d come, wasn’t it? It was like, say, getting the provenance on something you were buying. Nice to know where it had been and how it had been treated.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“Came straight here.” He shrugged. “There must be a hotel here in town.”

“Would you like to stay with me?” She bit her lip. “You don’t have to. I don’t want to put pressure on you if you’d like some space, but… I’d love to have you.”

Yeah, he wanted space, but he found himself strangely reluctant to hurt her by refusing. What the hell? he told himself. A few days, a week. Why not?

“You sure it wouldn’t put you out?” Gary asked.

Pleasure brightened her face. “I have a guest room. Oh, this is wonderful! I can hardly wait to call Carrie! Shall I?” She half rose. “Or would you rather I wait?”

“Can we take this a little slow?” he asked.

“Oh.” She sank back to her chair. “Of course.”

She sounded so damned disappointed, he felt like a crud.

Even so… Two of them, both weeping and wanting to clutch at him. Both gazing at him with a look so needy, he shifted in his chair at the very idea.

“So why did you change your mind?” this sister asked suddenly. “You never said.”

“You know your…uh, Carrie called me.”

She nodded.

“I kept thinking about her voice….” Her scorn. “Her talking about how much it would mean to you to meet me.”

Her face softened. “She said that?”

“She said it would be a kindness if I were to call.”

Once again, he’d apparently stumbled, because her expression became warier. “So that’s what you’re doing? A kindness?”

He was almost embarrassed to realize he rarely cared enough about what other people thought or felt to do a kindness.

“No,” he admitted. “I suppose…I was curious.”

“Oh.” She relaxed.

“Also, I had an accident.” While she exclaimed in horror, he told her the facts without mentioning the pull the abyss had exerted on him. “Just got the cast off my leg two weeks ago.”

She was shocked that he’d been able to ride cross-country so soon and fluttered some more. Once again, Gary was mildly surprised at his tolerance. He didn’t go out of his way to hurt people’s feelings, but he didn’t usually put himself out a great deal to prevent doing so. Maybe there was something to this blood and genes thing.

Or maybe a near-death experience softened a man up.

“Are you married?” she asked finally. “Do you have kids?”

“Divorced. No kids.”

“A girlfriend?”

“Not lately.”

“What do you do? I mean, for a living.”

He hesitated. Would it affect in some way how she felt about him? How worthy she found him?

“I’ve been working in coffee.”

Instead of reacting to the modesty of his job description, she laughed. “You mean, our Northwest mania for fancy coffee has spread to the Southwest?”

“Big time.” Coffee was damn profitable in New Mexico these days. Hot or iced, flavored or dark and bitter.

Her smile became kind. “Well, I’m sure if you’d like to get a job locally, you won’t have any trouble.”

“I won’t be staying that long.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “I’m sorry. I hoped…”

“I own the coffee shop,” he explained. “And the roasters.”

“I don’t know what made me think you’d come to stay anyway. Of course you have a life! I’m just so glad you’re visiting. New Mexico isn’t that far away.”

Not that far away? he thought in mild alarm. Was she imagining holidays with the whole family gathered around the table, holding hands and saying grace? The image made him queasy.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you married?”

Echoing him, she said succinctly, “Divorced. No kids.”

“Job?”

Pride filled her voice. “I just opened my own business, too. We must be an entrepreneurial family. I opened a yarn shop three months ago, right here in town. Knit One, Drop In.”

“Yarn shop?”

“Knitting. I sell supplies, give classes. Business is taking off really well.”

Knitting. He hadn’t known that anyone younger than eighty did it.

“I sell my own work, too,” she continued. “And I’ve had a bunch of patterns published. I’m hoping for a book of patterns one of these days.”

“Do they sell well?”

“Hugely,” she assured him. “The thing is, they don’t go out of print the way the average novel does. They sell and sell and sell. For years. I’ve made thousands just on a single pattern.”

Who’d have thought?

“You have employees?” he asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “Not really. I’m working long hours. I open, eat lunch and run to the bathroom during lulls, close, then do the books.”

He remembered those days. You didn’t make it with a small business if you weren’t prepared to put in twelve-hour-plus days and maybe go months on end without taking a day off.

“A couple of my customers are experienced knitters who live locally and enjoy working a few hours here and there, so I have women to call if I’m sick or need time to get to the bank. Today, one of them is filling in because of my appointment.”

“With Ms. Wilson?” He put the faintest of emphasis on Ms.

“Yes. I’m trying to adopt a child. Today was my home visit.”

He’d been rocking back in the chair. Now all four feet clunked down. “She’s a social worker?” Lawyers and politicians were commonly despised. He saved his loathing for the group of managing, high-minded people who were determined to tell everyone how to live. “Home visit?” His mouth curled. “You mean, she was here to decide whether you were good enough to be a parent?”

“Don’t you think an agency should be sure they’re placing children in homes where they’ll be loved and well taken care of?”

His laugh wasn’t pleasant even to his ears. “And you think they can tell from one visit? Lie halfway decently, you can fool ’em. Haven’t you read about all the kids raped by their adoptive daddies or hurt by the woman who was so sweet when the social worker interviewed her?”

Suzanne’s eyes had gone wide. “You weren’t…” she whispered.

“Raped?” He made himself lean back and ostensibly relax. “No.”

“Or…or…?”

“Hurt?” He shrugged. “Harold used his belt or his fists sometimes, sure. He didn’t put my hand on a hot stove, if that’s what you mean.”

Damned if her eyes didn’t start brimming with tears again. “Oh, Lucien! I would have done anything… Anything…”

Abruptly, his throat closed and he couldn’t breathe. He lunged to his feet.