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He nodded. “I know. I just didn’t expect...”
“What?”
He shook his head and left his statement unfinished.
“He’s dead, you know.”
Georgia couldn’t imagine what made her blurt out the news that way—the words just tumbled out without her even having planned to say them. A muscle twitched once in Jack’s jaw, but he offered no other indication that he’d even heard what she said.
“Buck, I mean,” she added softly. She hadn’t uttered the name of Jack’s foster father for two decades, but it still left a bad taste in her mouth when she did. “He died about three years ago. Finally drank himself to death. Faye is dead, too. About six months ago.”
“I knew Buck was dead, but I hadn’t heard about Faye,” Jack said, a complete absence of any kind of emotion in his voice at the mention of his former foster parents. “Can’t say that I’m sorry to hear it, though.”
Georgia nodded. Although his foster mother hadn’t beaten him up the way his foster father had, she’d never done anything to stop the abuse, either. It was easy to understand why Jack couldn’t forgive either of them.
No other words passed between them for several moments, then Georgia remembered she was playing hostess to someone she hadn’t seen in ages. “Would you like some coffee?” She gestured at the fireplace behind her. “I could switch on the fire. We could spend the whole afternoon catching up on everything that’s happened since we saw each other last.”
“That could take a lot longer than one afternoon,” Jack told her with a sad smile.
She shrugged again, a little more anxiously this time. “Then we’ll just have to give it more than one afternoon.”
He said nothing in reply to that, and Georgia nibbled her lower lip fretfully. This was just too weird. Although she had never forgotten. Jack McCormick, he was frozen in her mind as a boy of barely eighteen. A surly, angry boy at that, one who’d had no money, no prospects and no hope when he’d left Carlisle. The man who stood before her now was like a stranger. He looked like Jack, kind of, and he spoke like Jack, in a way, and he moved like Jack, a bit, but he wasn’t Jack. Not the Jack she remembered, anyway.
That other Jack had been such a big part of her life at a time when she’d needed someone badly. For one full year in her young life Georgia had had someone to care for, someone who had cared for her in return. For one full year she’d felt like a human being, and it had been enough to generate the strength she’d needed to start pulling away from her father’s bullying.
But after one year, just when things were starting to look up—for her, at least—Jack had disappeared from her life completely, and she’d been left alone again.
Not that she hadn’t expected him to leave. From that first afternoon when he’d driven her away from her father’s wrath, Jack had made no secret of the fact that the day he turned eighteen, when he was no longer answerable to the state of Virginia, he was hightailing it from Carlisle forever. He’d made clear, too, that he’d never again—not in a million, trillion years—set one foot in any of the towns where he’d been placed as a kid.
And Georgia had never doubted that he would stick to that vow as if it were sacred. However, she’d always thought he might consider taking her with him when he left Carlisle, even if she wasn’t of legal age. Or that he might come back for her when she turned eighteen, too. At the very least, she had thought he would tell her goodbye before he left.
But none of those things had happened. Back then, she had told herself she would be prepared for Jack’s departure when it came, and that she would somehow manage without him once he was gone. And she had. Although it had been painful to lose him, Jack’s determination to survive and thrive in the face of adversity had infected Georgia enough to keep her going, even after he was gone.
And now he was back, a man full grown, driving a car that cost more than most houses, self-assured, successful, dynamic. He was no longer surly, but there still seemed to be an unmistakable anger about something simmering just beneath his surface. Evidently, these days he had plenty in the way of money and prospects. As for hope, however...
“I’m not going to be in town for very long,” he said in response to her earlier suggestion that they give it more than one afternoon, scattering her ruminations.
“So why did you come back?” she asked again. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe you’re here because I was the only person you could talk to, and I just so happen to still be in Carlisle.”
“Something that surprises me, quite frankly,” he remarked, once again avoiding a response to her real question.
She shrugged. “This is my home, Jack. It’s where I grew up. I have a business here, and people know me. I even have a few friends these days. I like Carlisle,” she told him simply. “In spite of...everything else.”
“And just what’s your father up to these days?” he asked.
That was Jack, she remembered as a ripple of tension seared her belly. Always straight to the point. “I assume he’s the same as always. We don’t see too much of each other. Not deliberately, anyway.”
“Why not?”
She gazed at him blandly. “You, above all people, should know the answer to that question.”
He shook his head. “I just thought you might have patched things up between the two of you by now.”
She expelled a sound of disgust. “Not likely.”
He nodded, as if the information were no surprise at all. The silence stretched between them until it became an almost palpable thing. Georgia stared at Jack, and Jack stared at Georgia. Both of them obviously had a lot on their minds. So why weren’t they talking about much of anything?
“Jack,” she finally said when she could no longer tolerate the quiet, “for the last time, what are you doing back in Carlisle?”
She thought she detected a slight hesitation before he told her, “I have some business here.”
Georgia nodded, resignation coiling like a chunk of ice in her midsection. So it wasn’t she who had brought him back to town, after all. “What kind of business?”
“Long story. But obviously having to come to Carlisle reminded me of you. And then I got the news about my brother and sister, and...” He inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “I wanted to see you, Geo. I’ve wanted to see you for a long time now.”
Geo. It was the nickname Jack alone had used for her. A term of endearment. A term of affection. And hearing it again for the first time in more than twenty years made Georgia want to cry for some reason. She turned hastily, recalling that she had been about to make coffee, and crossed quickly to the kitchen. Unfortunately, with the layout of the small house being what it was, the kitchen was pretty much just an extension of the living room, so she was still well within Jack’s view.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you for the last few days,” he continued. “I’ve needed someone to talk to, and you were really the only person I could ever open up to, you know?”
She nodded, the motion jerky and fast, but kept her back to him as she filled the coffeemaker with the dark, fragrant powder.
“I...it’s—”
He bit off the statement immediately after beginning it, and she detected something in his voice then that was troubled and wary. Quickly she completed her task and gathered her thoughts, then returned to the living room to join him while the coffee brewed. He had moved away from the windows, and now occupied the place where she had last been standing herself. She gestured toward the sofa, but he declined the invitation without even acknowledging it. So Georgia dropped down to seat herself there instead.
“It’s what?” she asked.
Instead of answering, Jack moved back to the chair where he had draped his coat, then withdrew a slender white envelope from the inside pocket. Wordlessly, he crossed the room again and handed the letter to Georgia, and she eyed him with puzzlement as she extended her hand for it.
“Just read it,” he said softly.
She scanned the Washington, D.C., return address—evidently a private investigation firm—and looked back at Jack, still confused. When he nodded silently, she withdrew the letter from inside and read:
Dear Mr. McCormick,
I represent a brother and sister, the former Stephen and Charlotte McCormick, now named Spencer Melbourne and Lucy Cagney, originally of Richmond, Virginia, and now living in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, respectively. The matter concerns their search for an older brother, Jack William McCormick, from whom they have been separated for more than thirty years. Through my investigative endeavors, I have reason to believe you are that brother....
“Oh, Jack,” Georgia said as she glanced up at him again. “You’ve found them.”
He shook his head, his expression a mixture of joy and terror. “No, they’ve found me.”
She dropped her gaze back to the letter and read through to the end, marveling at how much this must mean to him. “Have you contacted them yet?” she asked when she completed the missive.
He shook his head again.
“Why not?”
“I’m not ready yet.”
“But you’ve been wanting to find them ever since I met you.”
“I’m not ready yet,” he repeated.
“But, Jack...”
He strode restlessly across the room and collapsed onto the sofa beside her, as if his legs were no longer sturdy enough to hold him. He tipped his head backward until it was resting on the sofa’s back, stared blindly up at the ceiling and sighed with much vigor.
“Do you remember how I told you I made a promise to myself the day the social workers came and took Stevie and Charley away from me?”
Her heart turned over at the memory of the vow a small boy had made. “You swore you would find them someday,” she said. “And that the three of you would be a family again.”
He snapped his head forward, his expression vicious as he stared out at the living room. “And I promised myself I’d be in a position to take care of them when I did. That no one would be able to take them from me again. Ever.”
For the first time since encountering him again, Georgia saw a clear sign that the boy of seventeen was still very much alive in Jack McCormick. Part of him was still scared, still unsure of himself, still untrusting of the world. She smiled sadly, wondering why she was surprised. In spite of making it on her own all these years, a big part of Georgia would never be able to leave behind the frightened girl she’d been before meeting Jack.
“But the twins must be over thirty years old now, Jack—”
“Thirty-five,” he interrupted her.
“Surely they’ve been taking care of themselves for years. No one could take them away from you now. They’re adults. They can come and go as they please.”
“They might still be in trouble,” he told her. “They might still need someone to look out for them. Hell, look what happened to me.”
“Hey, if that nice little foreign job you drove up in is any indicator, it looks to me like you’re a big success,” she said.
He turned to look at her full on, his eyes dark and angry. “Success is a relative term,” he told her softly. “And you have no idea what it’s taken to get here. Until I know for certain, I can’t be satisfied that the twins are okay. They could have been constantly moved from one place to another, like I was. They could have ended up with people who didn’t give a damn about them, like I did. Anything could have happened to...”
He rose abruptly and began to pace restlessly the length of the small room. Georgia watched him in silence, giving him a moment to cool down. It was funny, how easily the two of them had slipped back into their old rotes—Jack feeling edgy and anxious about something, Georgia there to listen and reassure.
“They both have different names now,” she began again when he seemed to be calming down somewhat. “Obviously they were adopted. They probably had very good lives. Just because you were forsaken by the state doesn’t mean they—”
“They weren’t with their family,” he interrupted again, halting his pacing directly in front of her. “Their rightful family, I mean. They weren’t with me. They couldn’t possibly have lived lives as good as they could have had if we’d all stayed together.”
Georgia couldn’t argue with that. Even though her own experience with family was a painful one, she felt certain that Jack McCormick would have made a difference in his twin siblings’ lives, however those lives had been lived.
“You should answer this letter,” she said. “You should see them. As soon as possible.”
“I will. But not yet. I’m not ready. There’s one more thing I have to do. One more promise I made to myself that I have to keep before I can send for my brother and sister.”
“What promise is that?”
His gaze snapped to hers, his eyes stormy. But he said nothing to enlighten her.
Georgia opened her mouth to say something else, then thought better of the action. Obviously, Jack had given this matter some thought, and nothing she could say would change his mind. She folded the letter neatly back into thirds, carefully slid it into its envelope and handed it to him. He took it from her silently, gazed at it for a moment, then slid it back into his jacket pocket.
The coffeemaker in the kitchen wheezed its last gasp. Georgia rose and filled two mugs, then carried them carefully back to the living room. When Jack only stared blindly at the mug she extended toward him, she set it on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa beside him again.
As covertly as she could, she stole a glance at his profile, still unable to believe he was actually there, chatting about the twins as if twenty-three years hadn’t passed since their last conversation. He gazed toward the windows that overlooked the beach, obviously consumed by thoughts of his family, and she took advantage of his preoccupation to consider him more fully.
His black hair was kissed with silver, and he had a small scar high on his cheek that hadn’t been there before. She wondered how he’d come by it, wondered about everything that had happened to him after he’d left Carlisle. Without even realizing what she was doing, she glanced down at his left hand to see if he was wearing a wedding band but saw no indication that he had ever slipped one on.
His hands seemed bigger somehow than they had been before. All of him seemed bigger somehow. Over the years, whenever her thoughts had strayed to memories of Jack, she’d recalled a young man of wiry build and awkward movement, a boy who always seemed to be looking over his shoulder or dancing around as if dodging a punch. She supposed that was understandable, seeing as how it hadn’t been unusual for him to show up at her bedroom window bloodied and bruised. The Jack of her youth had been running every bit as scared as she had been.
But this Jack seemed fearless. Solid. Unwavering. His focus was sharp, and he clearly had a plan of action. She just wished she could tell what it was. Somehow, she sensed he was hiding something from her. Even though so many years had passed, and in the scheme of things she really hadn’t known him for that long, Georgia felt as if she could still read Jack intimately. And even beyond all the outward changes, for some reason something about him wasn’t...right.
“So what have you been doing all these years?” she asked, striving for something innocuous to ease the tension she felt eating him up. “Looks like you found a decent job,” she said with a chuckle. “Finally got that car you always wanted, I see, though those D.C. plates come as a surprise. I never thought of you as the urban type.” She tried to sound nonchalant as she added, “What else is there? Are you married with children?”
When he met her gaze again, his eyes were edged with fatigue and sadness. “I’m kind of surprised you’d care about what happened to me after I left Carlisle.”
She was honestly stumped by his response. “Why wouldn’t I care about you?”
He shrugged, sighing heavily. “For some reason I thought you’d be angry with me when I saw you again.”
Again she was puzzled by his assumption. “Why would I be angry with you?”
“Because I... left you.”
The way his voice softened on the last part of his statement made Georgia’s heart hammer a little more fiercely behind her rib cage. “You always promised you would. It’s not like I wasn’t prepared.”
He nodded, straight white teeth catching his lower lip as he thought about something. “Yeah, well, that made one of us,” he told her cryptically.
She decided not to dwell on his odd assertion and instead continued, “After you left town, I consoled myself by telling myself you’d come back for me. Then, after a while, I knew that would never happen. Once I turned eighteen, I sometimes thought about coming after you. But I was never sure where to look.”
“Anyone could have found me who wanted to,” he said. “But no one ever wanted to, apparently.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she objected when she realized what he was trying to say. “Don’t make me out to be the bad guy in this. You’re the one who left Carlisle without even saying goodbye.”
His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “Like you said, I never made a secret of my intentions.”
“No, but you never extended me an invitation to come along, either.”
He shook his head at her in disbelief. “I didn’t think you’d need one. Besides, you were only fourteen—you weren’t legal to come. Your father would have had the law on us in no time. Geo, I—”
“Jack, stop.” She rose abruptly and ran a hand nervously through her hair, wanting to kick herself for ever getting them started on this. “There’s too much we could have—should have—said and didn’t. We were kids. Two totally different people from who we are now. Let’s not even talk about your leaving or my not looking for you. We both could have done things differently, but we didn’t, and there’s nothing we can do to change that, all right?”
She forced a smile. “Let’s not allow it to wreck our friendship. You were the best buddy I ever had. We just found each other again. I don’t want anything to spoil that.”
He continued to stare down into his coffee instead of meeting her gaze, but he mumbled softly, “All right. We’ll let it go. For now.”
For now, Georgia repeated. She supposed it was inevitable that they’d have to address the past eventually. But today they were both more than a little dazed at seeing each other again after the passage of so much time. Jack had a lot on his mind where his family was concerned. The last thing they should be doing was rehashing the old days that had brought them so many hard times, and so much unhappiness. But there was still far too much left unsaid and unsettled, she knew. And somehow, some way, soon, they were going to have to address that.
The moment stretched taut, until the back door careened open on the winter wind, and a male voice shouted out, “Georgia! I’m home!”
Georgia and Jack spun abruptly around toward the announcement in time to see a young boy in his middle teens burst into the kitchen and slam the door good-naturedly behind himself. He heaved a stack of school books onto the counter and moved immediately to the refrigerator, yanking open the door to study its contents for a moment before snatching a soda and popping the top with a quick pffft. He was relaxed and unconcerned and clearly quite at home in his surroundings.
Until he looked up and saw Jack. And that’s when the boy snapped to wary attention.
Immediately his gaze shifted to Georgia, his expression a silent question mark. She smiled as she rose from the sofa, then made her way around it and into the kitchen, pulling the boy into a fierce bear hug. Then she stood beside him with her hand roped around his waist, and he draped his arm casually over her shoulder.
