Kitabı oku: «His Ten-Year-Old Secret»

Chapter One

“Sounds like Ol’ Lady Warrington let that hairy rat she calls a dog crawl up into this engine.”

Dylan Minster listened intently to the rough idle of the sweet, old Cadillac, his eyes riveted to the running engine.

“The first thing we need to do,” he said over the engine noise, “is pop off the distributor cap. Make sure it’s clean. No cracks.”

His daughter knew this already, he was sure. She was nearly ten years old now, and she’d been working on cars with him since she was a babe in diapers. But it never hurt to reiterate.

“Hand me a flathead screwdriver, Erin.”

The tool that was slapped into his palm didn’t have a flat, smooth head, but the crisscrossed one of a Phillips. He grinned. He had Erin now. This mistake was downright silly and deserved at least an hour’s worth of teasing. And he’d gladly oblige.

“You’re in for it now,” he said. But when he swung around expecting to see Erin, he came face-to-face with his stem-eyed mother.

When she offered him no greeting, he said, “Hi, Ma. How are you?”

“First of all,” she told him, “I take offense for poor Edith Warrington. She is not an old lady...”

“Aww, now.” He grinned, hoping to soften her obvious disapproval. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

“And Corky is a lovely little long-haired terrier,” she went on. “Not ‘a hairy rat.’ Edith is a wonderful friend. And she loves that dog like a baby. If she ever heard you talk like that—”

“She’s not going to hear me talk like that, Ma,” Dylan assured his mother.

“The only reason Edith patronizes your shop—” her gaze skirted loathsomely around the cluttered bay “—is because you are my son, and—”

“I know, Ma.” Dylan’s smile dissolved. His mother had a way of making that happen quite often. “And I appreciate the business your name brings me.”

“It’s your name, too.”

If only you’d do something with it. Her blatant motherly advice echoed unspoken in the air. He chose to ignore it.

Helen Minster tipped up her chin. And Dylan got the distinct impression that, now that she’d had her say, the subject was closed. He sighed.

“So what brings you out this afternoon?” he asked.

He watched his mother glance over her shoulder at her granddaughter who sat behind the steering wheel of Edith Warrington’s old Caddy.

She turned back to face him. “Why isn’t missy there in school?”

“Her name’s Erin, Ma,” he said quietly.

“Look at her,” Helen continued. “She’s filthy. Her hair’s a mess. Her fingernails are greasy. And she’s—”

“Ma.” His voice was clipped just enough to make her stop. “Let’s talk about this in my office.” Giving his daughter a quick glance, he said, “Cut the engine, hon. I’ll be right back.”

He stalked off toward the side door leading to his office, making every effort to dampen the burning embers of his anger.

Dylan was well aware of the fact that he was his mother’s worst and only disappointment. That he was no comparison to his brother and sister, both shining examples of the education, polish and success that Minster money could buy. And because he knew all these things, took full responsibility for them, he tried hard to be patient with her.

Flipping on the light in his small office, Dylan felt a self-conscious tweak as he looked around at the shabby furniture. The sorry excuse he called a desk was beat-up, the heavy gray metal dented and scratched. The couch was propped up on one corner by a red brick. And the leather seat of his desk chair was cracked in several places.

Funny how he never seemed to notice how neglected his surroundings were until his mother came to visit. Which, thankfully, was only on rare occasions.

“Have a seat,” he told her, rounding his desk and easing himself down onto his chair.

She eyed the couch distastefully. “I don’t mind standing, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” He snatched up a pen from the desktop, squeezing it between his thumb and index finger. “Erin had a headache this morning,” he explained. “She came to work with me and took a nap in my office. She woke up feeling better, so she was helping me out in the shop.”

“Well, when she woke up feeling better,” his mother stated, “you should have taken her to school.”

“Ma—” Dylan’s shoulder sagged with the effort of this justification, but he was so used to this kind of interrogation that he barely noticed. “It’s after two o’clock. She’d have been in school an hour.” Then a thought occurred to him. “How did you know Erin wasn’t in school today?”

Helen Minster’s lips pursed for an instant. Then she said, “If you must know, I asked the school secretary to call me if Erin was absent.”

Patience, Dylan reminded himself. He asked softly, “Why would you do a thing like that?”

“Dylan, this is a new school year. Erin must start off on the right foot.” She shifted the position of the purse handle that hung on her forearm. “I don’t know why you won’t allow me to send the child to boarding school. I sent you to boarding school.” She paused, as if she had second thoughts about the statement, eyeing him pointedly.

And just look what you did with the education I provided for you.

His mother’s accusation couldn’t have been clearer if she’d said it out loud.

Then she added, “As well as your brother and sister.”

“Public school is fine for Erin, Ma,” he told her. “All Erin’s friends attend the school here in Pine Meadow. She’d be miserable if she had to go to a new school. She’s getting a fine education right where she is.”

He didn’t want his daughter feeling as lonely and out of place as he had felt as a youngster being shipped off to boarding school. He hated every moment he’d been away from Pine Meadow and his friends and family. However, he’d bent to his mother’s will because as a child he’d had no other choice. Until high school, anyway, when he’d discovered that a threatened expulsion due to fistfighting with his classmates was the perfect way to force her to let him attend school in his hometown.

“Yes,” his mother said, “and she’s getting that education along with every piece of riffraff Pine Meadow has to offer.”

“You know my views on that subject,” Dylan said wearily. “Erin’s going to be dealing with all kinds of people as an adult. Black, white, yellow, brown, rich and poor. It’ll do her good to learn to get along with everyone while she’s a kid.”

“Humph, maybe.” Helen Minster was obviously unconvinced. Then her eyes lit with a new attack. “But boarding school would get her away from this place. And it’s this grease pit I most want to get her away from. She should be taking piano lessons, or ballet lessons. She should be reading Black Beauty and Little Women. That child should be wearing lacy dresses and patent leather shoes.”

She stopped suddenly, hesitating long enough to take a deep breath, get herself under control

“Dylan, that child is soon going to be ten years old. She’s a young lady now. She shouldn’t be tinkering underneath the hood of a car, her hands filthy with grease. This...this mechanic shop—” she said the two words as if they were knives that stabbed her “—isn’t any place for a young lady. It isn’t right that you’re allowing Erin to follow you around like some oily little monkey whose only goal in life is to hand her daddy a screwdriver or a socket wrench.”

Up until now, he’d been resting his chin on his fist. But the moment his mother had called his daughter a greasy primate, he’d had to clamp his fingers over his mouth, his thumb planted firmly under his jaw to keep from growling at her to get the hell out of his office, out of his shop.

She’s only trying to help, he chanted in his head. She only wants what’s best for her granddaughter.

He looked out the window that separated his office from the three work bays that made up the shop. Erin had her head stuck under the hood of the car parked in the first bay. The bill of her baseball cap was twisted to the back of her head. Her elbows and knees were nut brown with grime, her denim shorts and cotton top smeared and grubby as well. His heart hitched in his chest. That little girl was his whole life. His whole world.

“That child needs some feminine influence,” Helen said. “And if she doesn’t get it soon, it’s going to be too late. You mark my words.”

Too late for what? Dylan was too preoccupied to ask. He was too busy wondering if his mother might be right. Was he doing Erin a great disservice by allowing her to spend time at the shop? Should he be chauffeuring her around to piano lessons and ballet recitals rather than teaching her how to change an engine’s spark plugs and fuel filter?

“I think you ought to let Erin move in with me,” Helen said.

His knee-jerk reaction was to say, “No way.” But the response fell on deaf ears.

“I can teach her to be a proper young lady,” his mother argued. “You do want her to grow up into a woman who can hold her head up in this town, don’t you? You do want her to be proud of who she is? Do you think that’s going to happen when she spends most of her life—” she looked around again, disdain evident in every muscle of her face “—hanging around Dylan’s Auto Repair?”

Usually he wasn’t at all fazed by the disgust his mother showed when she spoke the name of his business. Usually he allowed her disappointment in him to roll off him like water off a rain slicker. Usually. But today it struck him—like a forceful, unexpected poky in the gut with a tire iron.

“You think about it,” his mother said. “And when you do, I want you to consider long and hard what’s best for Erin. Not what’s best for you.”

She opened the door of his office then, and carefully picked her way through the dirty clutter of car parts toward the big open door of the garage bay, taking care not to allow the hem of her yellow dress to become soiled. Helen Minster called a curt goodbye to her granddaughter and then disappeared from his view.

Almost immediately, Erin was standing in the threshold of his office. “You okay, Dad?”

He nodded. “Sure, hon,” he told her. “Give me a few minutes, okay?”

She smiled and then went back to fiddling with the Caddy’s engine.

Dylan sat at his desk for a long time, studying her. Tendrils of wavy red hair escaped from under the cap on her head. Concentration creased her brow as she searched in the large metal box for some tool or other.

The love he felt for that little girl out there was so great it actually made his chest ache. And he found it more than a little worrisome to think that letting her hang out here at the shop with him might be harming her in some way.

Okay, he thought, so we have a problem. His daughter’s femininity needed a little...fine-tuning. Hell, he told himself, tell the truth, Erin’s feminine side needed a complete overhaul!

As much as he hated to admit it, his mother was probably right. Erin should be reading great works of literature. She should be involved in culturally enriching activities. And there couldn’t possibly be a less likely place for a little girl to find polish and refinement than an auto repair shop.

He stroked his chin over and over between his index finger and thumb as his mind churned. Boarding school was out of the question in his mind. But was the solution packing Erin off to live in Minster House with his mother?

“Over my dead body,” he whispered too low for anyone but himself to hear.

Pine Meadow certainly hadn’t changed much in the ten years she’d been away, Tess mused as she drove through town. Certainly, the strip mall on the main thoroughfare was new, or at least new to her, as the shops had looked well established when she’d passed by them. But the First Methodist Church looked the same as ever. As did the supermarket on the corner of Main and North Streets. And the fact that the billboard hovering over the double doors of the Main Street Theater advertised Hollywood’s hottest movie let her know the cinema was still doing a booming business. Tess had spent many a Saturday afternoon in the cool, dark recesses of that movie house while her father was busy at his shop. And then as a teen, her theater visits changed to Saturday nights. When she’d sneaked out on dates with Dylan Minster.

His name whispered across her mind, across her thoughts, sending shivers skittering across her skin.

Lord, how she had loved him. And the things she’d learned from him...

Tenderness. Commitment. Affection. Passion.

The closeness and devotion they had shared together rivaled even that between Shakespeare’s infamous Romeo and Juliet.

Tess smiled. The childishly fanciful manner in which she thought of her relationship with Dylan was inevitable, entirely natural, she guessed, seeing as how she’d been so young when they’d been a couple. Her smile faded, though, because along with tender passion, he’d taught her other things as well.

Pain. And guilt. And anger.

The awful names he’d called her had the flush of humiliation rushing to her face even after all this time. It was so sad that the three wonderful years they spent together were marred forever by the one hostile, accusation-filled fight they’d had. The fight that had her finally agreeing to leave Pine Meadow with her father. The hateful words Dylan had used as weapons to assault her had been a devastating turning point in her life. Without them, without hearing Dylan’s opinion of her face-to-face, she’d have never left New Jersey with her father. She’d have never run away from the young man who had captured her heart so completely. No matter the threats from his well-respected and wealthy family. No matter the consequences.

Braking for a red light, she forced herself to rise from the foggy haze of her memories. She’d automatically switched on her left turn signal, and as she waited for the light to change, she realized she was staring at the red brick building that had always been the home of Minster Savings and Loan.

Fear welled up inside her seemingly out of nowhere. A fear so pure, so unadulterated, it had her heart pounding, her blood whooshing in her eardrums. It mattered not one whit that the panic threatening to drown her was irrational. The fact that Helen Minster, or the rest of the Minster clan, could no longer hurt her was too logical a thought; besides, it was buried under about a dump truck load of frantic insanity that had perspiration prickling her underarms and her brain screaming at her to get the hell out of this town, get the hell away from the prejudice of the judgmental Minsters. Such thinking caused nothing but heartache, humiliation and hurt for people like herself.

She’d worked so hard not to obsess about the account book she’d found among her father’s possessions. But now questions and conclusions swam in her head until she thought she’d surely drown in them.

Had her father accepted some kind of payoff from Helen Minster? There really was no other explanation that Tess could come up with. Had they really been paid to leave Pine Meadow? She shook her head, thinking the only possible answer to that was yes. And all this time Tess had been under the impression she and her father had left town of their own free will, with their chins held high, their pride intact. But it seemed their exodus had been under a whole different set of circumstances entirely. But if what she surmised was true, why hadn’t her father used that money when the two of them had been in such need of it over the years? The interest had accrued on that account, and not one dime had ever been withdrawn. That didn’t seem to make sense, and it was that part of the situation that had her curious for answers. It was that part of the situation that had compelled Tess to take a leave of absence from her new practice and travel to Pine Meadow.