THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED Page 7

  Mack shrugged. "My mother came to see me on my eighth birthday, and that was it."

  "But why? Why would she do that, desert you like that?"

  "It turned out that she wanted to marry her boss—and she never managed to tell him about the kids she'd farmed out. When he proposed, she put us up for adoption, giving up all claim to us, along with any responsibility for our care."

  "They told you that, when you were a child?"

  "No. They only said, as gently as they could, that my mother couldn't take care of me anymore and I had become a ward of the court. I found out why later, after the class-action suit."

  "Why not until then?"

  Mack looked out the window again. The steady drone of the engines filled the cabin, and high white clouds rose up like towers of cotton in the distance.

  "Mack."

  He looked at her again then. "All those years when I was growing up in other people's houses, and later, when I was slaving away at college, when I met you … I just wanted to forget about her. Even though I didn't have the facts then, I knew that she had dumped me, that she had tossed me and my sisters overboard like so much extra baggage in a sinking boat."

  Right then, Jenna ached for him. And maybe she understood him a little better than before. Was that a good thing? She wasn't sure. She felt such conflicting urges when it came to Mack, not the least among them the compelling need to guard her heart against the kind of damage he had inflicted on it before.

  He said, "All my life I wanted money. Lots of it. I guess it's a classic situation. I thought money would protect me against the kinds of losses I suffered as a kid. Then I got what I wanted, I had money. And not much else."

  Jenna's heart contracted. Not much else. She supposed that was true, in a way. He didn't have his family—his mother, or his sisters. And he no longer had a wife.

  He went on, "So I hired investigators, to help me find out what had happened to my past."

  "They tracked down your mother?"

  He nodded. "I went to Long Beach, where she lives now, and I contacted her. She agreed to meet me in the lobby of my hotel."

  "How long ago was this?"

  "Two years. She was … she looked so small to me. And kind of faded and tired. And so damn sad. She cried, and she smoked cigarette after cigarette. And I kept thinking I should put my arm around her or something, but I couldn't quite make myself touch her. She said that she never had managed to tell her husband about us—Bridget and Claire and me—and she just didn't know how she was going to be able to bring herself to tell him then, either."

  Mack let out a long breath. "It's strange. In my mind, over the years, I had made her into a kind of monster, a damn evil bitch who had dumped her own children. But looking at her then, I only felt sorry for her. She said she knew it was terrible of her, that if I didn't hate her already, I would when she asked what she was going to ask of me."

  Jenna had a good idea what that must have been. "She still didn't want to tell her husband about you."

  "That's right."

  "And what did you say when she asked you not to tell him?"

  "I said all right."

  Jenna knew then, if she'd ever really forgotten, why she had loved this man. "Oh, Mack."

  "Well." His voice was gruff. "What the hell else was I going to say? That I hated her guts and never wanted to see her again?"

  "Some men might have said exactly that."

  "No," he said. "No sense in that. I pretty much knew where I stood with her when I went looking for her."

  "And since then?"

  His mouth curved in a half smile. "I've kept in touch with her. I set her up with a P.O. box, so I could write to her and she wouldn't have to worry about her husband finding out. And she sends me stuff."

  "Stuff?"

  He looked embarrassed. "Stuff. You know, ugly ties for my birthday. Socks at Christmas. She's got a thing for those cheese-and-salami gift packs. You know, they come in a wooden box with a trademark branded into the lid. Inside, there's lots of fake green Easter-basket grass and different kinds of cheddar and smoked sausage—I get a lot of those."

  Jenna's throat burned a little with the sudden pressure of tears. But she knew that Mack McGarrity had never been a man to accept a woman's pity. She swallowed the tears down and tried to speak lightly. "Oh, Mack. Cheddar and smoked sausage?"

  "That's right. I tried to … help her out a little."

  "Give her money, you mean?"

  He nodded. "She wouldn't take it. She said that she and her husband were doing fine. She didn't need anything from me. She just wanted a letter now and then, and a place to send the salami and cheese."

  Jenna had more questions. "Has she been ill for a while now?"

  "Not that she told me about."

  "But you said she was sick."

  "A heart attack, pretty much out of the blue. She's only fifty-two. I picked up my messages this morning and there was one from her husband. I managed to reach him at the hospital. He told me that the prognosis isn't good and that she's asked to see me."

  There was a positive note here. Jenna pounced on it. "Her husband, you said? Her husband was the one who called?"

  "That's right. His name is Alec. Alec Telford. Seemed like a decent enough guy."

  Jenna repeated the name. "Alec. And your mother … her name is Doreen, right?"

  He looked vaguely surprised. "You remembered."

  How could I forget? she thought. He had told her so little about his family. Every detail she'd squeezed out of him had been information to treasure. "I believe that you also told me her maiden name was Henderson."

  He chuckled, but without much humor. "It looks like you've got all the facts."

  She grunted at that one. "Hardly. And what I'm getting at here is that, since Alec was the one who called you, it looks as if Doreen did finally tell him the truth, right?"

  "I guess we could logically assume that." He turned toward the window again. She knew he was hoping he'd answered enough questions for a while.

  But she had one more she just couldn't hold back. "What about your sisters, Bridget and Claire? Did you find them, too?"

  He turned to her with obvious reluctance and gave her his best lawyer's look. "And if I did?"

  "Mack. Don't be like that. Just tell me. Did you find them?"

  "Yes, I found them."

  "And?"

  "Jenna. Enough."

  "No. Come on. I want to know about them."

  "Oh, all right. Bridget's married. She and her husband have three kids. She lives in Oregon. And Claire is married, too. No kids yet, though. She teaches high school in Sacramento. From what my sources told me, both women are doing just fine."

  "Sacramento? Did you stop in to see Claire, then, on your way to Meadow Valley?"

  "No."

  "But why not?"

  "Jenna…"

  "Oh, Mack, come on. I just want to know what your sisters are like."

  "From the reports I got, they're nice, middle-class women with ordinary lives. But I can't say for sure. I've never talked to them."

  She frowned, confused. "But why not? You went to all the trouble of finding them. It seems to me that meeting them would be the next logical step."

  "After what happened with my mother, it occurred to me that maybe they wouldn't appreciate my popping into their lives out of nowhere."

  That was a phony excuse if Jenna had ever heard one. "But—"

  "Jenna. Let it go, all right? I haven't contacted my sisters, and I won't be contacting them. I know they're okay and that's enough for me." He turned to the window once more and stared out, as if the sight of rearing clouds and the rolling, dry mountains far below utterly fascinated him.

  * * *

  At the hospital they asked at the front desk for Doreen Telford's room. The clerk gave them some mumbo jumbo about critical care and asked them to take a seat. Someone would be down to speak with them shortly.

  Mack didn't like the sound of that. "What's wrong? Is
she worse?"

  "Sir, if you'll just have a seat, as I said, someone will—"

  "I know what you said. And I asked if my mother's gotten worse."

  "Sir I—"

  Jenna cut in then, taking Mack by the arm. "All right. We'll be right over there." She tugged on Mack's arm. "Come on. We can wait a few minutes. It's not the end of the world."

  Mack glared down at her, but he did allow her to lead him over to a black leather bench against the adjacent wall. When they reached the seat, she pulled him down beside her.

  "Something must be wrong," he said. He felt strange, uncomfortable in his own skin. And his stomach had knotted up. "I didn't like the look on that clerk's face."

  Jenna patted his arm. "It's all right. Just relax. She said it would only be a few minutes."

  In spite of the dread that tightened his gut, Mack almost smiled. Ever since he'd walked into her shop, ten days ago now, she'd made it painfully clear he was to keep hands off. Never consciously had she touched him. On the plane, when she'd forgotten herself for a moment and reached out, she'd yanked her hand back so fast he could almost have missed the fact that she'd reached out at all.

  So maybe this was a step in the right direction. She had her arm in his and she was holding on to him with her other hand.

  All right, it was mostly to keep him from jumping up and laying into the admissions clerk. But she was holding on. And it felt damn good.

  He endured the next ten minutes mostly because she kept holding on. He held on right back, even pushing it so far as to twine his fingers with hers—a move she allowed, though she stiffened a little at first and sent him a suspicious glance.

  But then she relaxed. She held on to him and let him hold on to her. After all, it was the kind of grim situation when a man most needs a woman's touch.

  Staring bleakly out over the reception area, Mack spotted the tall, stoop-shouldered man when he emerged from the hall to the elevators. The man wore a wrinkled short-sleeved dress shirt, dark slacks and black shoes. He had thinning gray hair and a certain look on his face: the glazed, rather numb stare of a man who has just taken a huge, unbearable blow and has yet even to begin dealing with it. A man in those first blank moments of pure shock.

  Mack knew. It was his stepfather, Alec Telford. And he knew what the look on his stepfather's face meant.

  He'd be getting no more boxes of salami and cheese in the mail. His mother was dead.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  The man Mack knew to be Alec Telford went to the admissions desk and spoke briefly with the clerk. The woman said something in reply, her gaze sliding over to where Mack and Jenna sat against the wall.

  The tall, dazed fellow turned and came toward them.

  Mack heard Jenna's voice, soft and cautious, in his ear. "Do you think that might be—"

  "Yes." Mack let go of her hand. "I do." They stood at the same time.

  The man stopped a few feet from them. "I … hello, I'm…" He blinked, his kind brown eyes going more vacant than before, as if he couldn't quite manage to call up his own name. "Alec," he said at last. "Call me Alec." He made a brave effort at a smile, one that stretched his mouth into a pained grimace.

  Jenna said, "Mr., er, Alec, maybe you ought to sit down."

  The brown eyes blinked again. "Sit? No, I don't think so." He turned resolutely toward Mack and held out his hand. "You're Mack. Dory's…" He gulped, his eyes going watery. Then he blinked again. "You're Doreen's boy." He extended a hand.

  "Yes. I'm Mack McGarrity." Mack held out his own hand. They shook.

  Alec leaned toward Mack. "I'm so sorry to tell you this, but Doreen … she's gone. It happened just…" He blinked some more and then sent his vacant gaze wandering the room.

  Finally he found what he sought: a clock, on the wall above the admission desk. "Just an hour ago. An hour and five minutes, actually. I was sitting with her. And she opened her eyes. She said, 'My arm hurts, Al. My arm really hurts.' And then … all those machines they had her hooked up to, those machines started beeping. Nurses and doctors came racing in. They did all they could, but they couldn't save her. She … she's gone now."

  "Come on," Jenna said. "Come on, Alec. You sit down right here." She took the older man by the shoulders and guided him to the bench. Mack knew a moment of stark gratitude that she had forced him to bring her here.

  Alec Telford let his head drop back against the wall and looked up at Mack and Jenna. "I … I'm sorry." He was frowning at Jenna. "You are…?"

  She gave him one of those smiles that haunted Mack's dreams, wide and tender and achingly sweet. "Jenna. Jenna Bravo. I'm Mack's, um, friend."

  Mack resisted the urge to jump in, to correct her, to insist, She's Jenna McGarrity. And she is my wife. Alec Telford, who had just lost his own wife, wouldn't give a damn anyway at that point.

  "Well," Alec said. "Nice to meet you, Jenna."

  Jenna's beautiful smile got even wider. "Nice to meet you, too."

  The older man tried to pull himself a little straighter. "I meant to … do better at this. I wanted to…" His sentence wandered off into silence.

  "It's all right," said Jenna. "You're doing wonderfully. Really."

  Mack took his cue from her. "Yes. Uh. Thank you. For coming down yourself to tell me."

  "I … well, it was the least I could do." The older man closed his eyes, licked his dry lips.

  Jenna started moving away. Mack sent her a frantic look.

  "Back in a jiff," she said, and headed across the room.

  "So many … things to deal with," Alec Telford said. "I don't seem to be handling it very well."

  "You're doing fine," Mack said automatically, watching Jenna as she went to the water cooler in the corner and filled a paper cup. "It's a big shock."

  "You resemble her," Alec Telford said. Mack turned back to the man on the bench, who was staring at him with a sort of musing intensity that Mack found unsettling. "Not in size, of course. She was so small. But … the shape of the face. And the eyes. Those blue-gray eyes…"

  My mother, Mack thought. He's saying I look like my mother. What the hell should I say in response? "Yes, I … well, I…" God. Jenna needed to get back here. She needed to get back here right now.

  And then miraculously, there she was, the filled paper cup in her hand. "Here, Alec. Some water, maybe…?"

  "Oh. Thank you." Alec took the cup and drank it in one swallow—so of course Jenna had to trot right back to the cooler and get him more. Fortunately, while she was gone that time, Alec didn't feel the need to start in again about how much Mack looked like his mother.

  Once he'd had his second cup of water, Alec pushed himself from the bench. "Well. I can't sit forever, now, can I? I admit, I've been sitting upstairs, since they … took her away. Just sitting there, thinking that I should get busy. And then they told me you had arrived, Mack. And so I…" He paused, closed his eyes, took in a breath. "I do believe I am babbling," he said.

  "Alec." Jenna laid her hand on his thin, heavily veined arm. "Alec, is there anyone here with you, to help you?"

  "Help me? No. No, I've … it's always pretty much been just Dory and me. But I'm … quite capable, really. I can manage. No problem." He blinked, turned to Mack. "Tonight. Could you come to the house, do you think? There are a few things Dory wanted you to have. You have the address?"

  Mack nodded.

  "And the phone number?"

  "Yeah."

  "About eight?"

  "Sure."

  "Good, then—oh. Wait. Where are you staying? I probably ought to know, just in case there's something I—"

  Jenna cut in then. "Alec, we can deal with all this later. Mack and I aren't going anywhere now. We're staying right here, with you, to help you."

  Mack almost said, We are? But he shut his mouth over the words just in time.

  Alec blinked some more. "Oh, no. I couldn't ask you. I can manage. Honestly, I—"

  "Of course you can man
age," Jenna said. "But there's no reason you have to manage, not all alone, anyway."

  "You're … you're sure?"

  Mack didn't think he'd ever seen anything so heartbreaking as the sheer relief on his stepfather's face when Jenna replied, "We're positive. We're staying with you."

  * * *

  They spent the rest of the day taking care of the thousand and one things that require attention when someone dies.

  They found a funeral home. They contacted Alec and Doreen's insurance agent, settled up with the hospital and removed Doreen's few personal items from her room there.

  Alec had a widowed sister, Lois Nettleby, who lived in Phoenix.

  "I suppose I'd better call her," Alec said absently. "She and Dory weren't real close, but I think she'd want to know."

  Jenna encouraged him. "Call her right now."

  So he did. Lois promised she'd be on the first flight she could find.

  Then they drove to the funeral home in the Lincoln that Mack had rented. There they chose a casket and set the funeral date: Friday, in the afternoon. Alec already had a place to bury his wife.

  "We bought our cemetery plot two years ago," he said. "It was mostly for me, of course. She's thirteen years younger than I am…" He paused, swallowed. "Excuse me. I mean, she was thirteen years younger. We just … we never imagined that she'd be the first to go."

  Jenna put her arm around his narrow shoulders. Mack watched from a few feet away, marveling, as he'd been doing for hours, at the ease and grace with which she soothed a virtual stranger's grief.

  She whispered something in Alec's ear, too low for Mack to make out the words. Something reassuring, apparently, because Alec nodded and said, "Thank you, Jenna. I appreciate that."

  When they were through at the funeral home, they returned to the hospital, where Alec got his car. Jenna rode with him to his house and Mack followed in the Lincoln.

  The house was ranch-style, a reverse floor plan, with the kitchen toward the front. Alec took the mail from the mailbox before he unlocked the door.