Wade nodded gravely. “I think you’re right.”
He set his empty glass on the tray and turned to his son. “Ready to go, Clay?”
“I sure will be glad when we live here,” Clay muttered, climbing reluctantly off the couch.
Lucas saw the heat in Wade’s eyes when he looked at Emily. “So will I, son,” he murmured. “So will I.”
Emily blushed happily. “I’ll walk you guys out to the Jeep.”
Clay took her hand. “‘Bye, Uncle Lucas,” he called over his shoulder as the family-to-be headed for the door.
“Yeah, er, see you, Clay.”
Cute kid, he thought. He wondered how long it would be before Emily and Wade gave him a brother or sister. And didn’t that thought make him feel old? Lucas still tended to think of Emily as his baby sister.
He spent the fifteen minutes while Emily was outside looking around, first studying the collection of antique Santa figurines on the mantel, a few of which looked familiar, and then the old photographs displayed on the sideboard. One photo, in particular, held his attention. It was a candid snapshot of himself at about thirteen, holding his little sister’s hand. Dressed in lace, bows, and ruffles, four-year-old Emily held an enormous Easter basket and strained against Lucas’s hand, eager to begin the search for colored eggs and candy.
He remembered that day. The family had gathered at Grandmother McBride’s for Easter. Excited children had been underfoot, the table had almost groaned beneath the weight of all the food, the adults had been relaxed and happy. Even Josiah McBride Jr., Lucas’s dour, emotionally withdrawn father, had been in a fairly good mood that day. And tiny, motherless Emily, so sweet and pretty in the dress Lucas had wrestled her into before church, had basked in the loving attention she received from her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins.
A hand fell on Lucas’s arm, drawing him abruptly back to the present. Her hair a bit tousled, Emily looked from the photograph he’d been studying to his face. “I’m so glad you’re here, Lucas. We have so much catching up to do.”
He turned away from the photos. “Why don’t we save it for tomorrow? It’s late, and I know you must be tired.”
She nodded. “I’ll take tomorrow afternoon off work. We can spend that time getting to know each other again.”
“Sounds good. I’ll go out to my car and grab my bag.”
“I’ll put out fresh sheets. I’m still using my old bedroom for now. Er...would you like the master bedroom? It’s the only one with a king-size bed.”
“I’ll take my old room, if it’s available.” Lucas had no desire to sleep in his father’s former bedroom. The cold-hearted bastard’s ghost would probably haunt him.
Outside, he stood for a few long moments with his hand on the trunk of his car, listening to the familiar sounds of the rural Georgia night. Crickets, frogs, the occasional hoot of an owl or distant baying of a dog. The old house was surrounded by acres of uncleared woods, which he knew were alive with deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, and other wild creatures.
The happiest times of his youth had been spent in those woods, tracking animals, fishing in the creek, or sitting in his favorite “thinking place” in the branches of the big oak.
Memories. They crowded his mind no matter how hard he tried to push them away. A few good ones—but even more bad ones.
He shouldn’t have come back. What the hell had he thought he would do? What had made him think Emily needed him, when it was obvious that she’d been getting along just fine on her own?
What he wanted to do was climb behind his steering wheel and get the hell away from Honoria and the memories it held for him. He might have done just that, had he not suddenly realized that Emily was standing in the open front door, watching him as though she was afraid he might decide to leave without a goodbye again.
He couldn’t do it to her. He’d hurt her enough the first time; he wouldn’t ruin her Christmas or cast a pall over her wedding just because he was an emotional coward. He waved a hand to her and opened the trunk, hauling out his bag.
At least, he thought, he wouldn’t have to see Rachel Jennings while he was in town.
That was one old memory he simply wasn’t prepared to face.
2
RACHEL JENNINGS couldn’t have explained why she’d been compelled to drive to the overlook Monday morning. Technically, the scenic point was on McBride land—it had once belonged to Lucas’s grandparents, and now to his uncle, Caleb—but it could be reached by way of a country lane that turned off the main highway into town. The woods surrounding the area blended into the twenty acres once owned by Lucas’s
late father—and now, Rachel assumed, by Emily. A well-worn footpath led from the overlook to the house in which Lucas and Emily had been raised.
Once a prime spot for hiking, picnicking and teenage necking, the overlook had been made offlimits to trespassers fifteen years ago—right after Rachel’s brother died there.
Without pausing, Rachel drove past the Do Not Enter signs. A few yards down the road, the woods seemed to close in behind her, cutting off her view of the highway. As a teenager, she’d loved driving her battered old Mustang past that point of visual contact with the world outside these woods. She’d been romantic and fanciful then, and she’d imagined that the trees had welcomed her, conspiratorially hiding her from disapproving eyes. And at the end of the lane, she’d known he would be waiting for her.
He wouldn’t be waiting this time. Lucas McBride had vanished into the night fifteen years ago and no one in town—not even his family—had heard from him since. At least, that’s what Rachel had been told by some of the avid gossips in town. Rachel hadn’t asked about Lucas on this visit—not that she would have, anyway. But the gossips had been all too eager to bring up old scandals and probe for a reaction from Rachel.