Anything for Her

chapter TWELVE



SO NOW HE knew where she’d gone to high school, Nolan thought on the drive home. Assuming she’d told the truth. He’d seen the alarm in her eyes when he pressed for specifics. Would he find there even was a town of Fairfield near Tulsa? And, goddamn it, what was he going to do if there wasn’t?

Or, for that matter, if there was. Fly there next weekend and show her picture around town? From what she’d said, she had moved away over ten years ago, and she might not have lived there that long. She kept repeating that her family had moved a lot.

He wondered if there was a way he could track Allie’s brother. Wright was a common enough last name, but hadn’t Allie mentioned that the guy was still in the Tulsa area? If so, that would be a place to start.

Nolan made himself go back to work when he got home, but brooded all afternoon. He had to lay off when it was time to pick Sean up after basketball practice. Seeing him walking out of the gym with a cluster of other boys, laughing and talking, stopping once to half wrestle with one of them, that was a bright spot in Nolan’s day. Sean had started getting phone calls at home over the past week or two. And he was talking about teammates in the casual way that suggested they were becoming friends.

“Eric says he skis, but Coach doesn’t like it ’cause he’s sure he’ll break a leg and be out midseason. But, man, I’d really like to learn. He says I could ride up with his family...” Or, “Aidan’s got a twin sister. Did I tell you that? He’s kind of doofus looking, but she’s sort of hot. I mean, you know.” His hands shaped a pair of stupendous breasts. “He said she wanted to know who I was.”

Today, he hopped in the truck, fastened the seat belt and planted his feet on the dashboard. “So, I made this awesome pass to Jared and then went for the key. He totally faked out Dylan, spun like he was going to shoot and then zapped the ball to me. I laid it up so sweet.” He pumped his fist. “After practice Coach said he thinks we’re going to have a fabulous season.”

Nolan grinned at him. “That’s great. All that time you’ve been putting in on the hoop at home is paying off, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I’m going to kick Allie’s butt the next time we play, too.”

“She was pretty amazing for someone who probably hadn’t shot a basket in years.”

Sean grunted his agreement. “It’s like...her body is totally centered. You know? There’s the way she moves, and she has this sense of where she is in relation to everything else. I bet she could have done something like gymnastics.”

“I’ve had the same thought. She did say she took dance lessons when she was a kid.”

Sean started grumbling about a paper he had due, and Nolan was just as glad not to talk about Allie anymore. He was too troubled by his thoughts. He knew she was lying to him, damn it! He only wished he could tell which things that came out of her mouth were lies, and which were truth.

That evening after dinner he went online and verified that, indeed, Tulsa had a suburb named Fairfield. And she was right, there were a lot of other towns named Fairfield around the country, starting with one in California.

So now what? he asked himself. Call the high school and ask for verification that Allie Wright had indeed attended? What excuse could he give? Did schools give out that kind of information?

He frowned. Why wouldn’t they?

Try.

Come morning, he stood there with the phone in his hand, and conducted a serious argument with himself. How would he feel, if he found out Allie was doing a background check on him because she doubted what he’d told her about himself? Trust was part of a relationship, wasn’t it?

But I know she’s lying.

Did that excuse him? He wasn’t sure. Was he exhibiting signs of major paranoia? Probably.

But he hated lies with a passion. And he faced the fact that he had to know, one way or another. Please God, may she never find out he’d made this call, he thought, dialing the number for information.

A couple of minutes later, he was talking to a school secretary at Fairfield High School. He claimed to be a potential employer wanting to verify attendance and graduation.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” the woman said cheerily.

He heard a keyboard clicking, some mumbles.

“I’m sorry,” the secretary finally told him. “I’m unable to find any student named Allie Wright. I tried Allison and some other variations. What years do you believe she attended?”

He told her. More tapping.

The answer was “no.” There had been students with a last name of Wright, of course. Perhaps Allie was a middle name or nickname? He said he’d find out and ended the call.

He swore aloud, resisting the urge to throw the phone.

Now what? Call her on her lie? But what if Allie was her middle name? Did he admit what he’d done?

“Goddamn it,” he growled.

His doubt hung heavy on him all day, disrupting his concentration. He got careless and broke a saw blade, the piece flying away barely missing his arm. He swore some more and managed to pay more attention until the time came to pick up Sean again after practice.

He’d vowed not to say anything to Sean about his fear that Allie was lying to him. “I don’t seem to have it together today,” he admitted, once Sean got in and slammed the door. “You okay with stopping for a pizza on the way home?”

“Is Scarlett Johansson hot?” the teenager said.

Nolan had to blink. Well, yeah. He’d take that as a yes.

At his favorite pizza parlor, they ordered, then settled at their table with glasses of soda. He wasn’t much of a drinker; he had an occasional beer at home, but he wanted to be sure he set a no-drinking-and-driving example for a kid Sean’s age.

“So, did you ever ask Allie about the Oklahoma thing?” Sean surprised him by asking.

“Yeah. She says her mother is the one who wants to pretend they never lived there.” He should stop there, he knew he should. “But I could tell Allie was uneasy about the whole thing. Wish I knew why.”

“You can look, you know.”

Nolan stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, lots of high schools have their yearbooks online now.” He shrugged. “I mean, you guys were in high school a long time ago. Maybe those old yearbooks aren’t up, but you could check.”

“Allie is only twenty-eight,” Nolan said mildly.

Sean looked at him as if he was an idiot. “That’s ten years ago.”

“You’re making me feel like an old man. I don’t like it.”

The kid laughed at him. “You’re getting, like, middle-aged, you know. That’s almost old.”

“Thank you.” He shook his head. “They just called our number. My arthritis is acting up. You go get the pizza.”

Sean thought that was pretty funny. He was chortling when he slid out of the booth and headed toward the front.

“Yearbooks are really online?” Nolan asked him, when he returned with two plates and an extra-large pizza with everything on it. “Where anyone can look at them? I didn’t photograph well.” Or should he have said, I don’t photograph well?

Sean surveyed him with a critical eye while still managing to take a bite and chew enthusiastically at the same time. “Yeah,” he finally decided, “that’s probably because your face isn’t really together. You know? It’s kind of bony, and your hair is always sticking out, and...”

Nolan held up a hand to silence him. “If you keep going, my ego may never recover.”

Sean shrugged. “Allie likes you, so what difference does it make what you look like?”

“That’s true.” Of course, that was assuming Allie wasn’t conning him big-time.

But...why would she be? What did she have to gain from pretending to like him? From making up a background that would satisfy him?

None of it made any sense. His original questions had been casual; he didn’t care where she’d grown up or gone to high school. He’d never have given her answers a second thought if she hadn’t been so obviously evasive, and if then she hadn’t lied.

Or her mother lied, he reminded himself.

“I can help you find her yearbook online if you want,” Sean offered. “If you don’t think you can.”

“It’s probably not beyond my abilities,” Nolan said drily. “If I fail, you can be my backup.”

“Maybe she looked dorky in high school. She might have had zits all over her face, or dyed her hair blond or had a whole bunch of piercings.”

Nolan finally did laugh. “In which case, I won’t recognize her.”

Sean pondered for another minute. “I bet Allie never had zits.”

“I bet not, too.”

When they got home, Nolan did not rush straight to his computer. He would be happiest if Sean didn’t know how serious he was about this search. The kid kept popping out of his room to ask questions for his research paper and then to tell Nolan this cool thing that had happened today and that sucky one. At long last, he disappeared and stayed disappeared.

Nolan went online.

It took some doing, but damned if Sean wasn’t right. It appeared that many if not most high schools now put the yearbooks up on the internet. What’s more, they were apparently going back and putting the old ones up, too. If Nolan wanted, he could probably hunt for his parents’.

As it happened, he’d seen their yearbooks. Those photos had cemented his awareness that he did not in any way resemble the man he had always called Dad. Once he’d known the truth, he’d felt dumb for not suspecting sooner.

Shaking off thoughts about his lying parents, he zeroed in on Fairfield High School, Oklahoma—the computer seemed determined to divert him to a high school with the same name in another state.

Allie had moved at the beginning of her senior year, she’d said. Probably before photos were taken. He found the year before she’d moved, although he could conceivably be a year off, depending on whether she was almost twenty-nine or barely twenty-eight. The search by name brought up one student with the last name of Wright—a boy named James. He took a careful look, but the kid was skinny, blond and had a big nose. Not Allie’s brother—and hadn’t she said he was older than her, anyway? He’d presumably already graduated the year she was a junior.

Grimly determined, Nolan scrolled through the freshmen. Despite his mood, he found it briefly entertaining, since Sean was that age. The prettiest girls were trying so hard to look sophisticated, the rest of the girls were clearly wishing to be anywhere at all but in front of the camera, and the boys might as well have been eight-year-olds who’d grown strangely tall. Except for one—a guy with serious shoulders who was probably already shaving and could have been eighteen. Maybe he’d been held back a year. Or not. Nolan had had a classmate like that. He got all the girls until the rest of the boys starting catching up, maturity-wise, their junior and senior years. Nolan smiled reminiscently. He’d been pretty damn happy when he started needing to shave—and when he’d realized he was as tall as Mitch Judson.

Sophomores were noticeably more relaxed. Even the girls who weren’t the prettiest were using makeup with more confidence, relaxing into who they were. Allie’s face was not among them.

He was feeling some reluctance by the time he started in on the juniors. Was he really so set on confirming that she’d lied to him? And he already knew there was no Allie Wright among the students pictured in this yearbook. He was being stubborn, that’s all, not wanting to admit she’d really do that to him.

That he meant so little to her.

Halfway through, he was only glancing from face to face. He’d lost interest in reflecting on his own high school years, or how Sean would change so much over the next two years. He felt a little sick. Could he possibly have been so wrong about Allie?

His gaze stopped on some poor kid with the unenviable last name of Parfomchuk. Bet he’d spend his whole life having to spell his name.

But that wasn’t what had stopped Nolan. Going back, his eye reluctantly passed over several faces—Opgaard, Oliver, Oakes, Numley, Neumiller...Nelson.

Stunned, he found himself looking at a very young and pretty Allie Wright—whose name, according to the yearbook, had been Laura Nelson.

He closed his eyes then opened them again. Yep. It was still undeniably her. Different, of course; at sixteen, she’d been astonishingly beautiful, and yet unlike most of the other girls she wasn’t smiling. Her expression was...shy, maybe, but also grave.

He imagined her walking through the halls of the high school with that untouchable air. Pretty as a fairy princess, but he still bet she’d been labeled stuck-up. Unless the day this picture had been taken was a very bad one for young Laura Nelson.

And just who in the hell was Laura Nelson?

Or maybe the better question was, why, when Allie and her mother ran, had they been so scared they assumed new identities?

And what would Allie say if he asked her?

* * *

NOLAN BROODED ABOUT it for three straight days.

He called Allie Wednesday night and they talked for nearly half an hour, but his questions weren’t the kind he wanted to ask when he couldn’t see her face.

Thursday he took lunch to her shop again. He would have sworn she was glad to see him—but he also saw the flicker of apprehension in her beautiful green-gold eyes. She didn’t used to be nervous with him, but she was now, and he didn’t like knowing that.

He kept reminding himself that she hadn’t lied to him. There was a reason she and her mother didn’t want to be found—domestic violence was rearing, real ugly, in his mind—but despite everything Allie had chosen to be honest with him. Nolan held on tight to that knowledge.

As they finished lunch Nolan nearly choked on the question, Who is Laura Nelson? Wadding up his sandwich wrapping, he was on the verge of blurting it out when three older women entered the shop.

Smiling, Allie rose and went to greet them. They’d apparently brought quilts for her to consider for her next mini-quilt show—he got that much out of what he heard—and it was clear that his private time with her was over. He couldn’t decide whether he was frustrated or glad he’d been saved from possibly making a huge mistake.

He spent the next day trying to talk himself into letting it go. She had been truthful, insofar as she thought she could. Shouldn’t he be satisfied to know that much?

But he wasn’t, and Nolan knew himself well enough to be damn sure he wouldn’t be able to live with this kind of ever-present itch. He was in love with a woman who was living a lie of some kind.

The parallels with the lies his parents had told were too blatant. Too powerful.

He had to know.

Ask?

Or get the answers some other way?

By Friday he’d decided. Allie might not forgive him if she found out...but maybe she’d never need to learn what he’d done.

He went online again, and searched the Tulsa Yellow Pages for private investigators.

* * *

ALLIE SO DID not want to be spending Sunday with her mother instead of Nolan, but he hadn’t suggested they get together this weekend at all. So far he hadn’t said anything about Monday, either.

With no good excuse, Allie had agreed to lunch and a movie. She and her mother had made stilted conversation on the drive to Mt. Vernon after agreeing on the Calico Cupboard for lunch. Allie was doing her damnedest to be pleasant and avoid any subjects of contention.

For one thing, she definitely didn’t want to talk about Nolan.

She’d been feeling hollow for days now. He’d obviously cooled toward her. Either something was wrong, or he was getting bored. She didn’t know which explanation she hated more.

She and her mother were seated at a small table next to a railing, overlooking an antiques store a half a level below in the old brick building. The minute the two of them had given their orders and the waitress left them alone, Mom ditched the smile and leaned forward.

“I’d hoped by this time you’d have come around to seeing that I was right.”

Allie stared at her in disbelief. “Because there’s no chance you could be wrong?”

“All I’m doing is insisting we follow the instructions we were given. You know that, Allie. We made a commitment.”

All her good intentions evaporated. “You and Dad made a commitment.” Oh, God—didn’t that sound like a sulky teenager?

“What were our choices?” Her mother’s voice had hardened. “I wasn’t the only one in danger. A car bomb could have killed all of us. Or the Morettis might have decided to use my children as an example.”

“I heard you and Dad arguing, you know. Back then.”

Her mother looked wary. “What do you mean?”

“He didn’t want you to testify. He said you’d already steered the police in the right direction—they could dig up evidence on their own.”

“But what if they couldn’t? What if a murderer got away with it, because I wasn’t courageous enough to tell a jury what I heard?”

“Dad said something else.” Allie had never meant to confront her mother about this, but an anger she didn’t recognize had been driving her for weeks now. “He said the victim was another mob figure. ‘Scum’ was the word he used. He said it wasn’t as if you’d overheard someone who had killed a child.”

There was a tremor in her words now. “Mom, to ensure justice for a man who probably didn’t deserve it, you damaged all of our lives. Shouldn’t we have come first? Dad and Jason? Me?”

Her mother flinched when the shock wave of what Allie had said hit. Then she sat, very still, for a long time.

The waitress, smiling and chatty, brought the salads they’d ordered. Allie managed a distracted thanks. Mom didn’t move a muscle.

Neither of them reached for their napkins or forks when they were alone again. Allie balled her shaking hands into fists on her lap beneath the tablecloth. They stared at each other.

“You believe I damaged your life.”

Incredulous, Allie shook her head. “How can you even ask that?”

“You weren’t exactly deprived,” her mother said stiffly. “We gave you kids a good life.”

“Yes, you did. But it wasn’t the life we had. Do you have any idea how much I loved to dance? I was talented, Mom. I could have reached my dreams. You stole that from me when you decided it was more important to testify that day in court.”

She saw the way her mother blanched and knew that she had hurt her. That hadn’t been her intention when they started this, but a part of her had needed to say it, if only once. See what you did to me.

“You were thirteen. You might have lost interest or been injured or who knows what. Do you really think I should have violated my moral integrity because my teenage daughter had a favorite—” she waved a hand “—activity?”

Okay, that made Allie mad all over again. “You had to know how important it was to me. And what about Dad? He was so proud of Marr Industries. I remember how much he hoped Jason would want to go to work with him, be the fourth-generation Marr to be CEO. You stole that from both of them, too. Our grandparents lost us, and we lost them. We lost our names.”

The silence was thick and painful. “I had no idea,” her mother whispered at last.

“What you did to us?”

“That this is what you’ve thought all along.”

“Did you think I was starving myself for no reason?” Horrified, Allie realized she’d raised her voice enough that heads were turning. Thank heavens the nearest tables were empty. She closed her eyes for an instant, willing herself to a pretense, at least, at calm.

“I’m not unhappy, Mom. I love my business and I love to quilt. But now I feel as if you’re stealing my chance of marrying and creating my own family, too. And that’s tearing me apart.”

Her mother’s face was pinched and almost unrecognizable. She seemed to have aged another ten years in the past ten minutes. “If he loves the woman you are right now, that’s what matters. Can’t you see that?”

Allie shook her head against her mother’s pleading. “Let’s not go there again. I told you, it’s not Nolan, it’s me. Me.” She pointed her thumb at her chest. “I need to be loved for all of me. I need to be able to acknowledge all of me. But you know what? You’ve managed to turn the conversation around again so we’re back to talking about why I am suddenly defiant. I think after all these years I deserve to know whether you really listened to Dad. I need to understand why you made the choice you did.”

Mom’s face crumpled before she composed herself again with a visible effort. “How could I have lived with myself if I hadn’t done the right thing?”

“But Dad didn’t think it was the right thing, did he? Did you ever listen to him?”

Her mother’s chin shot up. “Of course I listened! Do you really think I’m that self-centered?”

Yes.

The silence hung as they stared at each other.

“Make me understand,” Allie begged. “Haven’t you ever had second thoughts? Regrets?”

“Of course I have!” Now her mother’s voice shook. “When your father left me...and then to have Jason turn his back.” Tears ran down her cheeks. Seeming unaware, she didn’t lift a hand to catch them. “I never dreamed...my family fell apart because I asked all of you to support me in doing something hard. Was that really too much? It was the first time ever that I could do something important. My whole life...” She stopped as if she’d shocked herself.

“‘Your whole life’ what?” Allie whispered.

“I was never anything.” Mom’s face was ravaged. “My brother, of course he was going to college. After all, he was the boy. Why would I need a career when I’d be getting married and raising children?

“And then it was Mike. That damn company always came first. Marr Industries.” She said it with bitterness that corroded. “All I was supposed to do was support him. He didn’t even like it when I got a job. Did you know that? He didn’t understand that I wanted something that was mine. Of course, without an education the best I could do was assistant work. All I was doing was the same thing for someone else.” She finally balled up her napkin and swabbed at her cheeks. “And then there was you.” That came out muffled.

“Me?”

“You were so cute in your first recital. Do you remember your costume? Red-and-white checked, red tutu. You were four years old, and everybody watched you as if they’d seen a miracle. I wanted to give you everything you needed, I did, but sometimes...”

Allie’s chest was so constricted, breathing had become hard. She had to say this, though. “Sometimes you resented me, too.”

“Yes! Yes!” Through tear-swollen eyes, her mother glared. “I know that makes me a terrible person—you don’t have to tell me. Maybe I should have been content to live my entire life doing nothing but supporting my husband and my children.” Her face twisted again. The tears ran again, unheeded. “And I would have been, but then I was in a position to do something meaningful. Even the FBI agents were excited. They made me feel...important.” No longer focused on Allie, she seemed to see something far away and long ago.

Shaken by her mother’s confession, Allie had no idea what to say. I understand? That’s what she’d asked for, wasn’t it? Enough honesty so that she would be able to understand? The awful thing was, she suspected she had understood already, subliminally.

That was why Mom had seemed so excited back then. Those FBI agents buzzed around her as if she was the most glorious, fragrant flower in the garden. The decision was hers to make, not her husband’s, not her children’s, not her frequently critical mother’s.

When the U.S. Marshal decided to move them again, this last time, Allie realized that her mother had felt important again. She wouldn’t be in danger if what she’d done hadn’t counted.

Glorying in once again being the center of attention, she hadn’t noticed how miserable her daughter was. She hadn’t begun to understand why her son had chosen to stay behind.

“Thank you for telling me,” Allie finally said, softly. A waitress approached, her concerned gaze on their untouched salads, but Allie gave her head a slight shake and the waitress stopped then retreated.

Mom had quit crying and mostly mopped her face, although she looked terrible. “In the end, it all went so wrong,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“We can’t know what would have happened if you’d said no,” Allie was surprised to hear herself say. “Maybe you and Dad would have split up anyway. It doesn’t sound like you were very happy in the marriage. And Jason might have sided with Dad no matter what.”

“And you?” There was a great deal of pain in her mother’s eyes. “You might be soaring.”

“Or I could have been injured and had to give up dance,” Allie said prosaically. “You were right. That was always a possibility.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

Can I? Allie wished she could say, Of course, and mean it. The honest answer was I don’t know.

“You know I love you,” she said instead.

Her mother’s smile was crooked and more sad than pleased. “I know.” She drew in a big breath and looked down at her salad. “I suppose we should eat this.”

“Our salads look really good.” Of course, Allie had no appetite at all right now, but she nonetheless picked up her fork and took a bite.

How did she now say, Mom, the past is one thing, but I’m not sure I can forgive you if I lose Nolan because I can’t tell him the whole story?

And then it struck her: What if Mom had to admit that likely no one was looking for her anymore, not after all these years? That they weren’t looking because she wasn’t that important? If she was forced, finally, to let go of her belief in the choice she’d made. Think of the guilt she’d suffer. Would she be able to bear it?

Chest aching, Allie asked herself, Can I do that to my mother?

She didn’t know.

They ate a few bites in near silence. The blotches gradually faded from Mom’s face, although the lines seemed permanently carved deeper. Allie gradually realized how odd she felt. Maybe this was a case of being careful what you wish for. She hadn’t wanted to know that her mother had resented her for being special in any way.

And yet she did understand how Mom had felt. Allie hadn’t recognized that her grandparents were sexist enough to have devoted their praise and hopes and resources to their son while stinting their daughter. She had entirely misinterpreted those sharp voices she’d overheard coming from the kitchen. The fact that her granddaughter was interested in feminine arts like tatting had pleased Nanna, since her own daughter never had been. Maybe even Allie’s dancing had seemed girlie enough to be acceptable.

What might Mom have done with her life, if she’d been encouraged to go to college and maybe even grad school? It was entirely possible that Mom was smarter than Dad. Had it especially rankled that Dad had inherited his position and the company that carried his name?

Maybe.

And do I blame Mom for that?

No.

Allie knew enough had been said today. Her mother had broken. She’d see herself as having lost her dignity. Allie couldn’t bring herself to plead for more.

“You know, if we hustle we can still make that movie,” she said, and Mom visibly wrapped herself in a semblance of her usual self-possession.

“Oh my,” she said, glancing at her watch. “You’re right. Why don’t you see if you can catch the waitress’s eye?”

Allie lifted her hand, glad she had an excuse not to have to continue to pretend enthusiasm to eat. “Here she comes now.”

“My treat,” her mother said, reaching for her purse.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, as soon as the waitress moved off with Mom’s credit card. “We have enough leftovers to give us our dinners, too.”

Her mother ruefully agreed. A moment later they both accepted take-out containers and scraped their mostly uneaten salads into them.

Walking out, Mom remarked disparagingly on the antiques-and-consignment store that shared the building.

“Honestly, it’s barely a step up from a garage sale,” she said with disdain.

Allie argued, of course, because it was expected. She ought to be relieved that they were back on familiar footing.

Deep inside, she was still so angry, she was afraid she could never feel the same for her mother.