Father And Child Reunion Part 2 (36 Hours Serieal Book 6.2) Read online

  “I was a mother protecting her son. When you are a parent yourself, you will understand.”

  Rio felt his gut knot. What he wanted to do was tell her that he had long grown past needing protection by that point. He wanted to tell her, too, that making it sound as if she’d saved him because the girl had hurt him was a rather unique spin on telling someone to back off because she was the wrong race. But anger would serve no useful purpose. Especially now, when he needed calm to prevail.

  “I am a parent. I have a daughter,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “That was what Eve had called here to tell me.”

  He could see the questions forming as she stared up at him. The accusation. The disappointment. He could see denial, too, and maybe a hint of guilt, though he knew he’d go a long way before she’d ever admit to that one. Finally, they all formed a single question. “Where is the child?”

  “Eve has her.”

  Rio watched his mother turn away from him, her censure deliberate.

  “I knew no good would come of you leaving here to go to that college. You should have stayed, worked with Willy Little Dog. Your uncle would have counseled you, taught you to farm.”

  It never failed. No matter what he did, everything boiled down to this one lousy argument. He was trying to talk to her about his daughter and she wanted to point out where he’d gone astray. “I wasn’t interested in farming. I’ve told you that. Dusty’s the one who understood agriculture.”

  “Because he was in touch with the earth and the sky,” she pointed out, addressing the spirituality she obviously felt her younger son lacked. “He knows himself. He knows the importance of continuing what we have. Your mind is too curious, too unfocused. You should have stayed and found yourself. But no.” Shaking her head, she held her arms wide, the beads on the small amulet bag around her neck catching the glint of the sun. “You go, and you abandon everything. Now you have a child who belongs neither here nor there.”

  “There” was the white man’s world, the place Maria Redtree had never trusted. It had taken her husband and, like some men are drawn to the sea, it had lured a son. To this day, Rio knew she believed that Joe Redtree would still be with her if he hadn’t had to leave the res to find work.

  Rio stepped back, hating the feelings churning inside him. Everything didn’t have to be black-and-white, but his mother couldn’t seem to see anything any other way. His aunts and uncles weren’t like that. Neither was his sister. But that didn’t matter to Rio just now. It hadn’t been forgiveness or understanding for himself he’d sought from his mother. He hadn’t deserved or expected either. All he’d wanted was acceptance for his child.

  She didn’t need to say another word for him to know she couldn’t offer that. And a child, any child, deserved nothing less than to be unconditionally accepted for itself. God knew he never had been. Not by her.

  “She belongs where she is,” he said, finality in his voice. “This isn’t a place I would want her, anyway.”

  “You are just like your father.”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  Rio turned on his heel, fists clenched and dust puffing around his boots with each step he took.

  You are just like your father. She’d pushed him away with those words for more than fifteen years, using them like a weapon and making even whatever good traits he’d inherited from the man sound like something to be ashamed of. Every time he heard them, he cursed the man whose features he bore and whose insatiable curiosity he claimed, and he cursed himself for letting his mother get to him. But, even through his own anger, he realized that this time, there had been more pain than resentment in her accusation.

  The knowledge slowed his steps, his thoughts racing as he slowly turned around.

  She stood where he’d left her, still and immovable as a mountain.

  She had always blamed the white man’s world for stealing her husband, and wanted nothing to do with it because of that. But Rio had heard the talk when he was a child that the reason Joe Redtree had abandoned his family was because he’d been a dreamer who’d never been able to handle the responsibility of a wife and children.

  His father had been irresponsible, all right. But Rio suddenly had the feeling that there was more to his father’s defection than what he’d heard—and far more to his mother’s intolerance.

  “Did he leave you for another woman?”

  He saw her suck in a breath, her hand clutching her stomach as if she’d been struck.

  She shook her head, turning away.

  “I will not speak of this.”

  “He did, didn’t he? A white woman.”

  She said nothing, but her shoulders went rigid.

  “Does anyone else know this?”

  Silence.

  “Was she pregnant?”

  She denied nothing. But her pride allowed no admissions, either.

  “These are not questions for a son to ask his mother.”

  “They are when I’m being held accountable for my father’s sins. Is it because I look like him? Is that why you’ve always pushed me away?”

  She wouldn’t answer. Maybe it was because she couldn’t. Maybe it was because she didn’t know how. But after thirty seconds of suffering her silence, Rio gave up and turned away himself. Not until he reached his SUV did he look back to where she remained by the road, her hand clutching the bag around her neck and her face tipped to the sky.

  He hated leaving this way. Not speaking. Yet he always did.

  Revving the engine, he headed across the hardpack for the bridge, his knuckles white on the wheel.

  His mother’s house was a mile behind him before he felt the sting in his fingers and started to relax his grip. Yet it wasn’t the distance he was putting between them that helped relaxed his hold. It was the realization that, for the first time in his life, he understood why it was so impossible for his mother to trust anything that had to do with “there”—and how hurt she must have been when she’d realized why her husband had abandoned her.

  Rio knew that hurt. He’d been ten years old when his father had walked away, and he’d been devastated. He’d worshiped the man. But he understood now that being abandoned by a spouse or lover damaged a heart in a different way. He’d learned that himself from Eve. She was why he’d sworn to never again let himself care enough about anyone for it to make any difference whether they stuck around or walked away.

  Maybe his mother had done the very same thing. And maybe he was more like her than either one of them had ever realized.

  * * *

  Eve thought he would have called by now.

  Pulling her glance from the silent phone, she turned her attention once more to the printout in her hand. She should be practicing her speech. It was her mother’s speech, actually. The one Eve was to give in four days at a luncheon for five hundred people where she was absolutely certain she’d spill something red on the white suit she was planning to wear just before she stood up to screw up her mother’s carefully chosen words. But that seemed so irrelevant at the moment. Rio had gone to talk to his family two days ago, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since.

  She knew he was alive because she’d seen his byline on an article about a boat wreck that had happened yesterday. She even knew he was in town because she’d called the newspaper midafternoon, only to learn that he’d just left on an assignment. Had she left a message, he might have returned the call by now. But one hadn’t seemed necessary. He had to know she was waiting to hear from him. The last thing she’d said when he’d left the other night was “call me when you get back.” She’d even added “Please.”

  Retracing the path she’d paced in the living room, she tossed the pages onto the coffee table, covering the calling card the real estate agent had left after showing the house a few hours earlier. She could either try Rio at home, try his cell number or stop worrying about it and clean something.

  She didn’t expect him to answer. But he did.

  “Eve,” he said, immedi
ately recognizing her voice. “I was going to call you.” The sound of banging metal filtered over the line. “Things have been a little crazy.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She’d meant to ask if “everything” was okay. Or so she’d thought before the words had come out.

  Gripping the receiver a little harder than she should, she sank to the sofa. The silence on the other end of the line seemed to indicate that Rio had caught the difference, too.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, apparently having to think about it. A rushing sound, like running water, could be heard in the background. “Like I said, just busy.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Laundry.”

  She didn’t know why that made her smile.

  “Listen,” he began, the flatness in his tone tugging the corners of her mouth right back down, “I’m going to Denver in the morning, but I’ll be back Sunday or Monday.”

  “You’re not going to make me wait that long, are you? To find out what happened?”

  He knew what she was talking about. She also had the feeling from the length of his pause that he didn’t want to talk about it now—which was why he hadn’t called before.

  “It didn’t go well. I can tell.”

  “No,” he agreed. “She didn’t take it well at all.”

  She. “Your mother? Is she the problem?”

  “In a word.”

  “Can’t you tell me what she said?”

  “Things are just more complicated with her than I’d realized.”

  “Rio, come on.” She hated that the rift between him and his mother may have just widened. She hated, too, that he wouldn’t talk to her. “What does that mean?”

  He must have sensed her frustration.

  “She’s always had a thing about the white community,” he told her, his tone grudging. “I thought it was for the same reasons and prejudices we’ve always dealt with. But she has a more personal prejudice. It seems my father left her for a white woman. It’s been eating at her for years.”

  What he said wasn’t nearly as disturbing to her as the way he said it. “What else happened?” she asked, because something in his voice told her there was more that he wasn’t telling her. Something that sounded like hurt.

  His pause seemed to indicate that he hadn’t expected her to pick up on that. “Nothing that matters.”

  She didn’t believe that for an instant. “But something…”

  “Look, I’ve got to go, Eve.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  She thought she heard him sigh. But all he said was “No.”

  “Are you sure? I’ll help if I can.”

  “I can’t imagine what you could do. Anyway, it’s my problem. Not yours.”

  “But it is my problem,” she protested, needing him to see that. “Because of Molly.”

  “Eve,” he said, sounding very patient, very certain. “My mother is my problem. You don’t need to concern yourself with it.”

  There was no harshness in his tone, nothing to make her believe he meant to snub her. But his dismissal of her concern stung with a fierceness that took her breath away.

  It didn’t make her feel any better to know that she’d left herself wide-open to his rejection. After all, just because he’d opened up a little didn’t mean they were growing closer. She’d reminded herself a dozen times in the past weeks that his interests were only in the investigation and in their daughter. Their relationship existed only because she was the mother of his child. He’d as much as told her that himself.

  If she had the brains God gave a grasshopper, she’d take a lesson from him and be more protective of herself.

  “Okay,” she returned, willing strength into her voice. “Have a good trip.”

  “I’ll call you when I get back. Maybe I can take Molly to the park or something.”

  The way he spoke made it sound as if he wanted to take Molly by himself. For a variety of reasons, Eve didn’t let herself consider the thought any further than that. She said only that they’d talk about it when he returned. She didn’t even mention that Detective Richardson had picked up the bowl that had held the gardenias. But, then, Rio probably already knew that. Determined as he was to find a lead in the investigation, she was certain he kept himself up-to-date on the details.

  * * *

  It was because Rio was so determined to find a lead, and because Eve needed so badly for a lead to be found, that she left a message for him on her way out the door on Monday morning. He’d called as he said he would when he returned from Denver, and they had made plans for him to spend next Sunday with Molly. In the meantime, Hal had sent over a box of things from their mother’s office. Since it contained some personal files, she thought Rio might not want to wait until the weekend to go through them. That was the message she left on his voice mail at the newspaper office just before she left for the Children’s Charity luncheon.

  The luncheon was being held at the elegant Randolph’s. From what Eve had been told by Betty Dodd, the fluttery, birdlike lady in charge of the event, it had been touch and go as to whether the wind and water damage to the spacious restaurant would be repaired in time. The work wasn’t finished, but it was close enough. If anyone minded the huge sheets of plastic hanging along one side of the banquet room to keep the construction dust off the fifty beautifully set tables, they kept the thought to themselves. In Grand Springs, nearly everyone was pulling together to “make do.”

  “Miss Stuart, it’s so good to see you again.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, trying to remember where she’d seen the woman approaching her.

  “Eve,” came another voice from behind her. “You don’t know me, but your mother and I were in Toastmasters together for years. It’s so nice of you to do this.”

  A woman on her left snagged her arm. “Eve? It’s Candy Hampton. Well, Billings now. We went to grade school together.”

  She hadn’t seen Candy since the girl’s family had moved to the other side of town. But there was no time for reminiscing now. Only a quick hug and a promise to call. Betty was tugging on her sleeve.

  She got about three steps before she was stopped again.

  And so it went as Betty led her through the room filled with volunteers, business leaders and concerned citizens. Aware of eyes on her, responding to greetings and comments as they moved toward the head table, Eve couldn’t help but wonder how her mother had done this. Eve liked people, but she was more accustomed to smaller groups. Olivia Stuart had thrived on the energy a crowd generated.

  All it did to Eve was make her feel nauseous.

  I can do this, she told herself, smiling when a woman in a western-cut dress told her it was good to see her looking so well. Since she didn’t know the woman from Adam, she could hardly tell her she was looking well thanks to nouveau peach blush and cameo beige foundation. Instead, she politely thanked her, smiled again and moved on at the prod of Betty’s bony elbow.

  It was one thing to represent her mother at a small tea or fund-raiser, or to donate an item to a charity in her name. But if her mother hadn’t already written this speech, and had the subject not been so important to her, Eve wasn’t sure she could have spoken to such a crowd.

  The fact that the Children’s Charity had meant a great deal to her mother allowed Eve to make it through the next hour on little more than sheer determination. She didn’t even spill anything on her white suit, but that was probably due to the fact that she didn’t touch her meal. When it came time to read her mother’s speech, though, the case of nerves lasted only through the first few lines. After that, having nearly memorized the text, she let the steady cadence of her mother’s words take over.

  The words were her mother’s, but as Eve spoke, it became clear to everyone listening that the passion was hers.

  Rio certainly heard it.

  He’d slipped in to the back of the room and stood off to the side near the door. Petite as Eve was, she’d barely have been seen over the high p
odium had someone not brought in a step for her to stand on. Even then, only the shoulders of her tailored suit and her sleek blond head were visible. But once the flutter of nerves faded, her voice grew steadily stronger, its natural softness lending a power of its own as she spoke of the right of every child to grow up in a safe, secure environment. Of the growing presence of drugs on their playgrounds and in their schools. Of the need for the community to stand behind teachers and principals and law enforcement in cleaning up the problem before it reached any more of their children. Mostly she spoke of the need for children to be the first priority in every home; that a stable, secure home life, whether that child lived with one parent or both, was essential to teaching the values and accountability so many children were missing today.

  That was where her mother had stopped writing. Rio heard her tell everyone that as she looked up from the pages she’d referred to. With a poise he was coming to recognize as a shield, she went on to tell the absolutely silent crowd that she would be grateful to each and every one of them if they would remember what her mother had worked so hard for, and continue that work on her behalf. But just as she was about to thank them, her voice faltered.

  It didn’t seem to Rio that it was emotion that got her. Apparently, it was his presence. She’d just noticed him standing there.

  Seeming to recover as quickly as she stopped, she continued, finishing her remarks just as the door beside him opened. A tall man with close-cropped blond hair, a swimmer’s build and an air of absolute authority walked in. Rio immediately recognized Jack Stryker, one of the detectives on the Olivia Stuart case. After a nod to Rio, the no-nonsense cop zeroed in on Eve.

  The applause was still ringing when a woman with a voice like sandpaper and the presence of a pigeon took over the mike to thank Olivia’s daughter for sharing her mother’s convictions with them. Rio wasn’t sure what was said after that. In the moments before the applause started again and the crowd went into motion, his attention was divided between the detective and Eve, and scanning the room for the man he’d come to see.