Dark Angel (Casteel Series #2) Read online

  "Fanny, where are you? Please tell me! It's not too late to change your mind. You can refuse to accept the money and then you can keep your baby, and when you're older you'll never have regrets for selling your own child. Now please listen to me! I can send you the money you need to fly to Boston. My grandfather won't take you in, but I could put you up in a nice rooming house, and do what I can to support you and your baby." I was endangering my own precarious situation, but I did it on pure instinct, alarmingly homesick to see Fanny again.

  For a moment or so her deep silence on the other end made me think she was giving my alternative serious thought, and then came her decision. "Tom done tole me bout where ya'll live. An iffen yer gonna invite me an my baby t'come an t'stay, ya gotta invite me t'where ya live in a house big as a palace! Wid more bathrooms than ya kin count! Don't ya go insultin' me an my baby with no roornin' house, or motel room! Not when I'm jus' as good as ya are . .

  ."

  "Fanny, be reasonable. I wrote and told Tom that my grandparents have eccentric ideas. Why, Jillian doesn't even want anyone to know that I am her granddaughter!"

  "She mus' be crazy!" came Fanny's loud and instant decision. "Nobody so ole kin look so young as ya tole Tom . . . now ya go on an invite me, Heaven!

  Crazy people like her won't know no difference! Iffen ya don't, I'm sellin' my baby an takin' off fer Nashville or New York City!"

  At that moment I heard the deep, sonorous rumble of the Reverend Wayland Wise's voice as he came into the hospital room and greeted Fanny. And so help me God, Fanny slammed the receiver down and didn't even say goodbye!

  I was left with the dial tone, realizing she hadn't given me her address. Still she had mine, and my phone number.

  Fanny, oh Fanny. She was doing the same thing Pa had done—selling her own child. Oh, how could she do it! Even though Fanny was capable of being a selfish and heartless girl, I knew she'd regret selling her little baby. I just knew it. And I also knew that I could help her. I had money now, and I could find a way to support her and the baby, to buy it back from the Wises. But I couldn't invite Fanny here to live. If I did, I'd be tossed out myself, and I would lose all I had gained. For I'd learned that I had been accepted at Radcliffe, and Tony had already promised that I could count on him to put me through school, and I could stay at Farthinggale Manor or live on campus, whichever I prefered. Could I give all that up for Fanny? No, I couldn't. For Fanny was a confused girl, I rationalized, and it would take her a while to realize what she was doing was wrong. When she did, she would come to me for help. I knew that as surely as I knew it was snowing. And with a certain amount of relief to know that Fanny had come through her first delivery safely, and that someday she would come to me and I would help her to get her child back, I read until it was time to go to bed.

  Sleep was a hard-won prize this night. I was an aunt! I wished I dared to call Tom this second, and tell him Fanny's news. But Pa might be the one to pick up the telephone.

  The very next day I telephoned Tom, risking the chance my father would answer. "Hi," said my brother's voice, making me sigh with relief. "Oh, good golly gosh-jeebers!" he cried when he heard my news.

  "It's great news to know Fanny is all right, and terrible to think she's really going to sell her very own baby!

  It's like history repeating itself. But you can't risk your future for her, Heavenly, you just can't! You keep your mouth shut about Fanny and the rest of us. We'll see you again, all of us, even Keith and Our Jane, now that you have set those lawyers on their trail."

  In late March the blustery cold winter began to abate. The snow melted and hints of spring made me nostalgic for the Willies.

  Tom wrote to tell me to forget the hills, and the way it used to be. "Forgive Pa, Heavenly, please do.

  He's different now, like another man. And his wife has given him the look-alike, dark-haired son that Ma wanted, and didn't get."

  In April, for the first time, I could open a window and listen to the sound of the pounding surf without feeling nervous.

  Logan had not even made an effort to contact me, and day by day he was turning into only a memory, and it hurt, really hurt when I stopped to give his indifference more than a skipping thought. I had no desire to find a new boyfriend, and I declined most of the dates offered me. Once in a while I'd go out to the movies or out to dinner with a boy, but inevitably, as soon as he learned that he couldn't get past "first base," he gave up on me. I just didn't want to set myself up to be hurt again. Later, later, I would worry about love and romance; now I was content to concentrate on my educational goals.

  The one man I did see a lot of, and the one man who was replacing Logan in my heart, was the one man I was supposed to stay away from—Troy Tatterton. At least once a week, when Tony and Jillian were out, I'd sneak over and spend hours talking to him. It was such a joy to have someone to talk to, someone who really cared about me and knew the truth of who I was.

  I wanted in the worst way to talk to Tony about Troy, but it was a dangerous topic that brought immediate suspicion to Tony's eyes.

  "I hope to God you are heeding my warning and staying away from my brother. He'll never make any woman happy."

  "Why do you say that? Don't you love him?"

  "Love him? Troy has always been my biggest responsibility, and the most important person in my life. But he isn't easy to understand. He has a touching vulnerability that draws women to him, as if they realize his kind of sensitivity is rare in such a handsome and talented young man. But he's not like other men, Heaven, you remember that. All his life he's been restless, searching for something that is always out of reach."

  "What is it he's searching for?"

  Tony gave up trying to read his morning

  newspaper and frowned. "Let's be done with this conversation that goes nowhere. When the time is ripe, I'll see to it that you find the right young man."

  I resented his saying that. I'd find my own right young man! I resented anything he said that was critical of his brother, when I found Troy so admirable. And what woman wouldn't be delighted to have a man with so many homemaking abilities? Lucky, lucky would be the girl who married Troy Tatterton.

  The wonder of it all was he didn't even have a girlfriend.

  One day in May, while I was dressing after gym class, and all about me girls were showering, or changing clothes as I was, and talking incessantly, a red-haired girl named Clancey poked, her head into my dressing cubicle.

  "Hey, Heaven, wasn't your mother really Jillian Tatterton's daughter by her first husband? Everybody's talking about how you go around telling people she's your aunt, when all of Boston knows you can't be. It makes us wonder if the whispered rumors can't be true."

  "What whispered rumors?" I asked nervously.

  "Why, my mother heard Leigh VanVoreen married a Mexican bandit . . ." Mockingly she jabbed at the girl who was her best friend, who had come to join her.

  The entire dressing area hushed as all the girls turned off shower water and waited for my answer. I knew then that this attack had been planned to take me by surprise. I felt cornered and trapped by their hostile silence. And they had been so friendly after my birthday party.

  However, by this time I had learned a few tricks from my encounters with Tony; the best defense was to be on the offense, or to be completely and indifferently flippant.

  "Yes, your mother heard right," I admitted, adjusting the bow on my white blouse before I gave everyone what I hoped was a charming and confident smile. "I was born in the middle of the Rio Grande.

  Just beyond the American line by a foot or so." I raised my voice deliberately, as if to buck them off my back all at the same time. "And at the age of five my father taught me to shoot grapes from his lips, and the seeds from his fingertips," and there I'd gone and used one of Tom's favorite hill-bragging boasts.

  No one said a word, not a word. And in the silence, I slipped my feet into my shoes and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

  Soon prepar
ations for graduation took

  precedence over all other Winterhaven activities. At last, at last, I was well on my way toward college and self-respect. In the worst way I wanted Tony and Jillian to come to my graduation, to hear my name called as an honor-roll student.

  Jillian frowned when she read the thick, white invitation. "Oh, you should have told me sooner, Heaven. I promised Tony I'd go with him to London that week."

  Disappointment almost put tears in my eyes.

  Not once had she made the least effort to share my life. I turned my head to plead mutely with Tony. "I'm sorry, dear," he said with softness, "but my wife is right. You should have prepared us well in advance of the date of your graduation. I thought it was in the middle of June, not the first week of June."

  "They moved the date forward," I whispered in a choked voice. "Can't you postpone your trip?"

  "This is a business trip, and an important one.

  But trust me to make up for our negligence in more ways than just gifts."

  Naturally, as I'd already found out, making money came before obligations to family. "You'll be all right," said Tony with confidence. "You are a survivor just like me, and I'll see that you have whatever you need."

  I needed family, someone in the auditorium to see me accept that certificate! But I refused to plead more.

  At my first opportunity after learning that Jillian and Tony would be away on one of the most important days of my life, I slipped over to the cottage beyond the maze. Troy was my consolation, my solace, and without reservations I blurted out my pain.

  "Most of the Winterhaven grads are expecting not only their parents, but their entire families—aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends."

  By this time we were outside his cottage, both on our knees weeding his flower garden. Already we had taken care of his small vegetable plot. The work we did together reminded me of a long time ago when Granny and I had knelt side by side on the ground just like this. Only Troy had all the gardening equipment to make what we did easier, more pleasant. Our knees had soft, stain-proof pads, our hands wore gloves, and on my head Troy had put a huge straw hat so I wouldn't ruin my complexion with "too much tan."

  We had grown so familiar and comfortable with each other, sometimes we hardly needed to speak, and mere thought communication made the work go twice as fast. When we were done with weeding and planting I said, "It doesn't mean I'm not terribly grateful for everything that Tony and Jillian have done for me, for I am grateful. But whenever something special happens, I feel so alone."

  Troy threw me a sympathetic glance without responding.

  And he could have said he'd be happy to fill at least one seat in the auditorium, but he didn't volunteer! He didn't like public places and ceremonies.

  Miles drove me to Winterhaven the Friday of my graduation, and the girls flocked to stare at the new Rolls-Royce that Tony had given to Jillian for her sixty-first birthday. A beautiful white one with a cream-colored top, and a cream interior. "Yours?"

  asked Pru Carraway, her pale eyes wide and impressed.

  "Mine to use until my aunt Jillian is home again."

  Frenzy ruled that early morning when I entered Winterhaven. Girls ran about in various stages of undress, some with their hair still in curlers; not many of them lived within driving distance of home as I did.

  I felt resentful and slightly bitter as I watched other graduates introducing their family. Was this the way it was always going to be, my hill family thousands of miles away, present to me only in my thoughts, and my Boston family finding any excuse not to be present at my small victories? It was Jillian, of course, that I blamed.

  Easily my grandmother could inundate me with her generosity, but when it came to giving me a little of herself, and her time, I could have starved. And Troy could sometimes be so absentminded after he started on a new project that dominated his thoughts.

  Oh, I was self-pitying that day as I put on my lovely white silk dress with wide bands of Cluny lace rimming the full skirt and puffed sleeves. The very kind of frock that Miss Marianne Deale had once told me she'd worn on her high school graduation day, and at the time she'd described it, I had mentally recovered every detail, thinking that Logan would be there to admire me.

  As we forty girls lined up in an antechamber, donning our black robes and mortarboards, through the broad door that opened and closed constantly, I glimpsed the crowded auditorium flooded with bright June sunlight. It was like a dream coming true for me, after having feared so long this day would never happen, and tears wanted to flood my eyes and streak my face. Oh, I hoped Tom had told Pa about this day!

  If only I weren't alone . .

  Some of the graduating girls had ten and more relatives in the audience, the youngest ready to stomp their feet, applaud wildly, and whistle (considered in bad taste even in Winnerrow), and there would be no one to clap for me. Lunch was going to be served on the lawn under bright yellow- and white-striped umbrellas. Who would sit at my table? If I had to eat at my reserved table all by myself, I'd die again of humiliation . . . but I'd slip away unseen, and cry alone.

  The coordinating director of this event gave her signal, and I, like the others, squared my shoulders, lifted my head, and with my eyes straight ahead, began the slow and measured step that would take us to our seats. In single file we paraded. I was eighth from the front girl, since we were arranged alphabeti-cally. I saw only a blur of faces turning, none familiar, all looking for their graduate. And if he hadn't half stood, perhaps my glazed eyes would have moved right over Troy. As it was, my heart jumped in the overwhelming appreciation of his not forgetting, for caring enough.

  I knew he hated social affairs like this. He wanted the Boston World in general to think he was off in some remote area of the world, and yet, he'd come. When finally my name was called, and I stood to make my way to the podium, it was not just Troy who rose to his feet, but an entire row of men, women, and children stood to applaud!

  Later, when all the graduates were seated under bright awnings with the sun and shade making it both warm and cool, and utterly beautiful, I felt a rush of happiness such as I'd seldom known before, because Troy had come and had asked several of Tatterton Toy Company officers and their families to show up as my family. They wore such "right" clothes that the girls stared at my "hillbilly" relatives, mouths agape, eyes disbelieving.

  "Please don't thank me again," said Troy when he was driving us both home late that night, after the school dance was over, and all the girls had envied me with my handsome "older man," who was also very admired and considered a real catch. "Did you really think I wouldn't come?" he admonished. "It was little enough I could do." He chuckled before he added, "I never knew a girl who needed a family more than you, so I wanted to give you a huge one. And by the way, they are all family in a way, aren't they? Some of them have grown old working for the Tattertons. They were delighted to come, couldn't you tell?"

  Yes, they had been delighted to meet me.

  Suddenly shy, I sat silently, very happy and yet deeply disturbed by what I was feeling. I had to admit to myself that I was falling in love with Troy. Was it right that dancing with Troy seemed ten times more exciting than it had when Logan had taught me to dance? I stole a glance at his profile, and wondered what he was thinking.

  "By the way," he said still alert and watching traffic, "the detective agency my attorneys hired to find your younger brother and sister think they have a clue. They've been searching to find a Washington lawyer with the first name of Lester. There are at least ten Lesters, and forty L initials within the confines of D. C., and twenty or more in Baltimore. They are also checking out the R his wife uses . . . so perhaps it won't be too long before we can find your brother and sister."

  My breath came faster. Oh, to hold Our Jane again! To hug and kiss Keith! To see them before they forgot all about their sister "Hev-lee." But were they the real reason I was tingling all over? Despite myself, I moved closer to Troy so my thigh pressed against his, and h
is shoulder brushed mine. He seemed to stiffen before he grew silent, and then we turned off the expressway onto the road I'd first traveled with Jillian and Tony. A silver ribbon road, twisting and winding toward the high, arched black gates. Home to me now, this road and the huge house that was hidden from view until you were almost upon it.

  I heard the roar of the sea, the pounding of the surf, smelled the salty brine, and with each minute, the richness of this night deepened.

  "Oh, let's not say good night just because it is after one," I said, catching hold of Troy's hand when we were out of his car. "Let's walk in the gardens and talk."

  Perhaps the warm, velvety night held some charm for him as well, for agreeably enough he linked my hand through the crook of his elbow. The stars seemed close enough to touch. Intoxicating perfume filled my nostrils and made me giddy. "What is it that smells so sweet?"

  "The lilacs. It's summer, Heavenly, or almost."

  Heavenly, he'd called me that again, just as Tom did. No one had called me that since I'd first come here almost a year ago now.

  "Did you know today, after lunch, the girls were friendlier to me than ever before? Of course they wanted me to introduce you to them . and I wouldn't do it. But I would like to know how you've managed to stay so uninvolved with the opposite sex."

  He chuckled and ducked his head shyly. "I am not gay, if that's what you want to know."

  I flushed with embarrassment. "I never thought you were! But most men your age date as often as they can, if they are not already engaged or married."

  Again he laughed. "I won't be twenty-four for another few months," he said lightly, "and Tony has always advised me not to rush into any commitment before I'm thirty. And, Heavenly, I've had some experience in dodging girls with matrimony in mind."

  "What do you have against marriage?"

  "Nothing. It's an old and honorable institution, meant for other men, not for me." And the cold, abstract way he said that forced my hand from his arm. Was he warning me to stay only a friend, become nothing more? Was it possible that no man ever was going to give me the kind of love and warmth I longed for?