Anything for Her

chapter THIRTEEN



“GOT TO BE HONEST,” the P.I. said. “I’ve hit a roadblock. I can’t answer your questions yet.”

Nolan peeled off his goggles. He’d already set aside the ear protection. With his forearm, he swiped granite dust from his face, keeping the cell phone to his ear. “You can’t track down any family?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve done that. Haven’t been able to talk to the brother yet, though. He’s a sales manager for one of our bigger employers in these parts. My brother-in-law works there, too. Mannerville Furniture. You know them?”

“No,” Nolan said tersely. “Should I?”

“The company manufactures fine wood furniture. Sells in fancy stores all over the country.”

Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose. “And this is relevant how?”

Small silence. “Well, I guess it isn’t. Only meant to say, this Jason Nelson is on the road most of the time. Hard to catch him home.”

“And the father?”

“Him I talked to. Mark Nelson. First he said he didn’t have a daughter and what was I talking about? When I took out a copy of the yearbook page and a printout of the emergency-contact page from the school records, he slammed the door in my face.”

“Huh.”

“He looked real shook-up,” the investigator remarked thoughtfully. “Not like someone who just didn’t want to be bothered. More as if...” He trailed off.

“He was scared?” Nolan didn’t even know where that came from.

“Yeah. That, or seriously ticked off. Hard to say.”

“I assume you checked out newspaper archives? Arrest records? You didn’t find anything suggesting domestic violence?”

“Nothing like that. There’s no hint the divorce was anything but amicable. Mrs. Nelson never called the cops on her ex, that’s for sure. Neither parent was ever investigated for child abuse.”

Then what in hell had happened? Nolan asked himself in frustration. Could there have been an ugly incident when the family was out of state on vacation, say? He raked fingers through his hair, stirring a cloud of grit. No, of course not; Judy and Mark Nelson had been divorced two years before she and Allie took off. Ridiculous to think they’d have vacationed together.

“Aren’t there other ways to investigate someone’s background?” he asked, grasping at straws. “Where did the Nelsons live before they showed up in Fairfield? What’s Nelson’s working history? Did the school record show a work phone number for the mother?”

“Oh, I pursued all those avenues even though they were peripheral to what you asked me to find out,” the man said. “I tried, anyway.

“Mrs. Nelson was a buyer at a department store that’s gone out of business. I got the name and number of a former employer of Mr. Nelson’s before they appeared in Oklahoma, only that number has been disconnected. The area code was Michigan, Detroit area. Did some searches for a Mark and Judy Nelson in Michigan back fourteen, fifteen years ago and came up with zip. No drivers’ licenses on record, no traffic tickets, no indication they owned property.” His tone was the equivalent of a shrug. “I can go back and knock on Nelson’s door again, or try to find an acquaintance who knows something, but...”

“No.” Whatever instinct had made him speak so quickly, Nolan was listening to it. Or, hell, maybe it was his bank balance talking. “No, let’s call it quits for now.”

“Your decision. What about the son?”

Nolan mulled that over. “Let’s hold off for now. I’ll let you know if I want you to talk to him, too.” He pushed the button to end the call and tossed his phone back onto the counter. “Shit.”

What had he stirred? It made him uneasy that Mark Nelson first denied he had a daughter at all then refused to talk about her. If Allie and her mother had changed their names to make good their escape from him, you’d think he’d have been intrigued by a P.I. coming around and asking questions. It might have occurred to him that this could be a chance for him to track them.

Why would he be angry? For that matter, why afraid? His wife and daughter had left town ten years ago. Too long for any crime he’d committed against them to be prosecuted now. Did they hold something over him? If they did, why had they run?

And where did Allie’s brother fit in? Nolan heard a deep sadness in her voice when she talked about Jason. If the dad had hurt her, would the brother really have turned his back on her?

Too many questions, no answers. Nolan had a bad feeling he’d just wasted his money—and taken a chance of losing Allie once and for all besides.

Have I ever really had her, he asked himself bleakly, when she hasn’t even told me her real name?

Now what?

Quit pushing, enjoy the relationship for what it was, hope that over time she’d trust him enough to tell him her story? A raw sound ripped its way out of him. Oh, yeah, there was a plan. Fall deeper in love with a woman who lied to him every time she opened her mouth?

It wasn’t in him.

“Damn you, Allie Wright.” Laura Nelson?

Right this minute, he wished he’d never met her.

* * *

ALLIE GLANCED AT the number displayed on her phone and groaned. She hadn’t talked to her mother since they’d parted Sunday after the movie. She’d ignored a couple of calls because she still had no idea what to say.

This, she thought ruefully, was a perfect example of their differing styles. Or was it clashing? Mom wanted to confront problems head-on. Allie retreated into herself.

But I do love my mother. I know that much.

With a sigh, she picked up the phone.

“Hi, Mom.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”

“I was planning to call anyway.” Sure I was.

“I’m glad.” Her mother sounded a little hesitant. “I thought it would be good for us to spend some time together.”

“Mom, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this again. Not yet.”

“Talking is how we work out problems.”

“How do we work out something that’s over and done?” Bitterness made an abrupt appearance. “We can’t have a redo, can we? Can you honestly say you’d do anything different if you had the chance?”

The pause was long enough she thought the call might have been dropped—or Mom had hung up on her. “You’re not being fair,” she said then. “You have the advantage of hindsight.”

“But you still expect me to make any sacrifice you demand, don’t you, Mom?” And there, Allie realized, was the crux. Her greatest anger wasn’t felt for choices long past. It was for now.

“That’s a hateful thing to say.”

She needed her mother’s blessings for telling Nolan everything, and she wouldn’t be getting it. Mom still wanted to be the endangered heroine of their story, and giving Allie a happy ending would diminish that role.

“Why can’t you respect my judgment?” she asked, her voice suddenly soft, hurt. “I have never loved a man before. I’ve never asked you for permission to tell someone the truth. I have kept your secrets for fifteen years. Do you really think I’m so foolish, I’d trust the wrong man?”

“You know it’s not that!” her mother snapped. “I explained. So much could go wrong. Why take a chance when it’s not necessary?”

Allie gently depressed the button that ended the call. She then turned her phone off.

She sat in her chair beside Sean’s quilt, stretched in the quilt frame, but didn’t reach for her thimble or needle. The deep blue and white blurred before her eyes.

She would be betraying her mother if she followed her heart.

Anger had transmuted into anguish that had her bending forward, hugging herself and breathing fast and hard.

It was a while before she had a moment of clarity. At least she still had her mother.

Both of them had been hurt by Allie’s dad’s defection and then by Jason’s. Mom might only be desperate to know that at least one member of her family wouldn’t desert her. It was hard to believe in other people when the ones who were supposed to love you most abandoned you.

Who knew that better than Allie?

She never did work on Sean’s quilt.

* * *

“WHAT’S THE DEAL with Allie?” Sean asked as he grabbed sour cream and steak sauce from the refrigerator.

Nolan set the platter with baked potatoes on the table. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t see her this weekend, did you?”

“I don’t always tell you when I get together with her.” Nolan checked the steaks he was broiling, decided they were done and grabbed a plate. He was glad to have his back to Sean. “Will you get me a beer?” he asked.

Silence. Reluctantly he turned to find his foster son hadn’t gone back to the refrigerator. He was staring at Nolan.

“What?”

“You hardly ever drink.”

“You know I like an occasional beer.”

“You can tell me it’s none of my business, you know.”

Nolan groaned. “Can we sit down and eat?”

As ordered, Sean got their drinks and joined him at the table. They ate in silence for a good five minutes. Nolan finally broke.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“It has something to do with her saying she lived one place and her mom a difference place, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Nolan admitted. “Like I told you early on, I’ve got a thing about lies.”

“You think she lied.”

The kid was a persistent little bugger, Nolan had to give him that. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “I think it was her mother who lied. But there’s something going on that Allie doesn’t want to tell me. I can’t do a relationship where the trust isn’t there.”

Sean pondered that while inhaling baked potato heaped with sour cream. “Allie doesn’t seem like someone who would lie. You know?”

Nolan grimaced. “I know.”

“So maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

The boy’s shoulders moved awkwardly. “I don’t know. Maybe she has to keep quiet for someone else. Or what if she’s scared or something?”

Scared, like her father was? “Scared of what?” The question was really for himself.

“Have you asked her?”

“No. I was hoping she’d come to me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know you’ve guessed something is off,” Sean suggested.

Nolan felt certain Allie was well aware of his doubts and questions. The tension had been there all along; even on their first date, she wasn’t eager to talk about her history.

“You weren’t all that high on me dating her,” Nolan reminded the boy. “What’s with the grilling?”

Some color touched his cheeks and he ducked his head. “She’s cool. It was me, not her. She treats me like a person, not a kid. If she was my girlfriend, I wouldn’t want to screw it up.”

Nolan didn’t want to screw it up, either. Was that what he was doing? In his obsession with honesty, had he blown it with the first and only woman he’d ever thought of the word love in connection with?

“I was your age when I found out my mother had been sleeping around,” he heard himself say abruptly. “The man I’d called ‘Dad’ my whole life isn’t my biological father.”

Sean gaped. “No shit?”

“No shit,” Nolan said grimly. “My brother, Jed, is his kid. My sister, Anna, isn’t.” He hesitated. “We think we have two different fathers.”

“You don’t know?”

“My mother won’t talk about it.”

“So you quit talking to her,” Sean said slowly.

Nolan raised his eyebrows. “How do you know that?”

Sean looked at him as if he was stupid. “I hear you on the phone with your sister and brother, but never either of your parents.” He flushed. “I mean, your mom and...”

“I still call him Dad.” Nolan grimaced. “I got snotty for a while back then and called him by his name.” A reluctant smile tipped his mouth. “He didn’t like it. He persuaded me that he was, by God, my father in every way that mattered.”

“So...” Puzzlement tugged the boy’s eyebrows together. “Why are you so mad at him?”

“Because he knew. All those years, he knew. We all lived a lie.”

After a minute Sean nodded and then applied himself to eating. Nolan looked down and realized his food was probably getting cold. He picked up his knife and fork, too.

“Allie might be different,” Sean said at last, tentatively. “I mean, you don’t know why she doesn’t want to talk about...whatever.”

“That’s true,” Nolan admitted heavily.

“I think you should talk to her.”

“Yeah.” Nolan smiled at him. “You’re right. I should.”

“So you will?”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

The response was a wicked grin, one that would have girls’ hearts fluttering. Maybe already did; Nolan remembered the teammate’s twin sister who’d been asking questions about Sean. Good God, Nolan thought; there’d be girls beating down the door before he knew it.

“You going to answer?”

“Not sure it’s really any of your business,” Nolan told him, “but yes. I will talk to her. Give her a chance to talk to me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Sean’s gaze settled on Nolan’s plate. “Are you going to finish the rest of your steak?”

Nolan had almost forgotten what it felt like to be hungry 24/7. “You can have it.” He forked the steak and shifted it to Sean’s plate. “The potato is all mine.”

“That’s cool.” He’d earned another grin. “I saw the pie. We get that for dessert, right?”

“It’s raspberry. And, yes, we do.”

“Ice cream, too?”

“Can’t eat pie without it.”

“Awesome.” Around the bite of steak he’d shoved in his mouth, Sean said, “I can dish it up.”

“So you can cut the pie in fourths instead of sixths?”

“It’ll get soggy if we don’t eat it fast enough.”

No denying it, fruit pies did get soggy as the days passed. He laughed. “You can dish it up.”

Satisfied, Sean asked Nolan if he’d ever read Lord of the Flies, because he’d started it for English class but he’d already read the end because that’s what he did. Nolan dredged up his memory of the rather disturbing book and they had a discussion about it that went deeper than he would have expected with a kid Sean’s age. It almost succeeded in keeping Nolan’s mind off what he’d decided he’d do right after dinner: call Allie.

Half an hour later, the kitchen clean, Sean bounded up the stairs to read a couple of chapters, he said. Nolan had noticed he was spending a lot more time online, too. On the whole, he thought it was a good sign suggesting Sean really was making friends. All those Facebook pages to check out.

With some reluctance, he picked up the phone and dialed Allie’s number.

“Nolan,” she said, her tone totally unreadable.

“Hey.” He winced. Not the best lead-in. “Listen, I was wondering if I could come over tomorrow night. I’d like to talk to you.”

The silence stretched long enough to make him nervous. “Is this a breaking-up kind of talk? ‘Allie, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think this thing we have is going anywhere’? Because if so, I’d rather you said it right now and got it over with.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d thought about saying something like that—and couldn’t imagine now that he’d ever have been able to spit it out. Or that he’d ever have gotten over the regret if he’d been that stupid.

Yeah? What if I ask my questions and she says, “None of your business.” What then?

Nolan didn’t know. His heart ached.

“No,” he said. “It’s nothing like that. I really do want to talk to you.”

“Do you want to come to dinner?” she asked carefully.

He hesitated. “Why don’t I come over after? Is that okay?”

Silence pooled again, deep and dark. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll see you when I see you. Good night,” she added, and the dead air told him she hadn’t waited for any good-nights from him.

Oh, crap. Now he was committed to laying it all on the line. He discovered that now he was the scared one.

* * *

ALLIE SURVEYED THE contents of her refrigerator and cupboards, but nothing appealed to her. She’d weighed herself that morning and knew she was in trouble. She’d be looking really scrawny soon, if she wasn’t careful. But knowing Nolan would surely be here within the next hour, having no idea what he would have to say, she couldn’t make herself eat.

She paid bills. Business had been good this fall, but that didn’t mean she was able to draw a huge salary from the store. Looking at her public-utility bill, she got up and turned down the thermostat. Wow. Time to start wearing sweaters.

Her stomach was balled in a knot. She tried hard to focus entirely on her checkbook balance and whether she ought to completely pay off the VISA bill or let part of it ride until next month. She noted how many minutes she’d spent on her cell phone—lucky she and Nolan usually talked in the evening and not daytime—but her mind kept flickering to him.

The pain in her stomach grew. She saw that her hand, wielding the pen, had a fine tremor. Anxiety swelled until she could hardly breathe.

What was she going to do? She knew what he wanted, what he was going to ask of her. The idea of defying her mother to this extent terrified her...but so did the idea of seeing frustration close down Nolan’s expression. He would walk out, she knew he would, and Allie didn’t think she could bear it.

If that happened, the wound wouldn’t only sever her relationship with Nolan. It would also be the killing blow to the love she felt for her mother, love that had been unquestioning until so recently.

Until Nolan.

At a sharp rap on the door, she jumped six inches. Why hadn’t she heard his truck? His footsteps on the steps? Oh, God, I’m not ready.

No choice.

She looked at the table in front of her and was surprised to see that she was apparently done paying bills. A neat pile of envelopes ready to go sat on one side, the checkbook on another. Wonderful. She didn’t remember putting stamps on the envelopes or even writing some of the checks, for that matter. It might be a good idea to check her math later, given that she didn’t remember doing that part of keeping a checkbook, either.

She got as far as the door, closed her eyes and willed herself to some kind of composure. What if she was terrifying herself for nothing? What if he only wanted to apologize for going missing this week, and maybe suggest they do something special this weekend? What if...?

She opened the door.

He was the original stone man. That craggy face was completely impassive. Even his eyes were shadowed, less clear and penetrating than usual. No, Allie realized, he wasn’t here to suggest they do something special this weekend.

“Allie,” he said, nodding.

She stepped back. “Come in. Please.”

His gaze did shift to the quilt. “You’ve made a lot of progress,” he said quietly.

She let herself look fully at him. “I’ve had plenty of time to work.”

That made a muscle in his jaw spasm.

“I had to do some thinking.”

“I take it you’ve reached a conclusion?”

“Can we sit down?” he asked.

“Oh, um, sure.” She turned her head. Here? Or at the table? “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

He shook his head, crushing her last desperate hope that this visit was casual on some level. “I’m good.”

She nodded and waved him to a chair. She turned hers from the quilting frame to face him. I want to be numb, she thought. Please let me go numb so I can think.

If wishes were horses...

She swallowed, looking into a face she realized now wasn’t impassive. It was implacable. Hard as granite.

“Allie, I know you’re hiding something. And maybe we haven’t known each other long enough for me to have any right to demand answers. I keep telling myself I should be patient.” He frowned, the first real expression he’d shown. “Funny thing is, usually I am. But you know how I feel about dishonesty. And why.”

Unable to meet his eyes again, she gazed down at his hands. “I haven’t exactly been dishonest.”

“Haven’t you?” His tone was as unbending as his face.

She opened her mouth to say no, then closed it. Her name was a lie. She was a creation, not a real person.

“I...” Her throat clogged. She didn’t know what she’d intended to say anyway.

“Why, Allie?” Suddenly he sounded so gentle, she thought her heart might break. “What is it you’re afraid to tell me?”

She lifted her head and saw that his eyes were kind, too. Despair washed over her, chased by something unexpected. Relief. He had made up her mind for her. If he’d been brusque, said “tell me or else,” she might have chosen her mother. That’s what this had come down to, hadn’t it. Mom or Nolan.

I choose Nolan. The power of the emotional punch made her bow forward.

He half rose to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath and straightened her back. “I’m fine. It’s just that...I had to swear never to tell anyone.” Never, never, never. Her nails bit into her palms. “I became Allie Wright when I was seventeen.”

He stared at her.

“When I was born, my parents named me Chloe. I was Chloe Marr.”

He made an odd, hoarse sound.

“When I was thirteen, my family went into the Witness Security Program. We had...we still have our own handler.” She tried to smile. “A U.S. Marshal.”

Nolan swore, leaning forward. His electric eyes never left her face. “Why? What happened?”

Allie took a moment to collect her thoughts. She felt as if, by saying her true name aloud, admitting to the Witness Security Program, she had peeled off a layer of skin. Every nerve in her body was now exposed. Allie was bared in a way she had never been before. She wasn’t sure she could stand to be touched.

She told Nolan the story then, how her mother had stayed late at work one day to finish up a project and had overheard enough to realize the company was a front for a mob organization. Worse yet, a hit had just been ordered and carried out. The killer was reporting his success to his boss.

“Mom went to the FBI. If she was to testify in court, she had to disappear immediately. She would never be safe, they told her. My father didn’t want her to testify. I overheard them arguing.”

Her tone a dull monotone, Allie kept talking about her mother’s determination to do the “right” thing, her father’s anger. She even told him why her father had objected to the sacrifice all of them would be making when the victim of the crime had been a crime figure himself. She admitted to the bewilderment she and her brother had felt.

“His name was Jacob,” she told him. “I was jealous when they moved us because they chose the name Jason for him. It was close enough that it still sounded like him. They named me Laura. I hated it.”

She talked about the three and a half horrible years in Oklahoma. The terror of the week when her mother had gone back to New York to appear in court, the fear her family felt that the Morettis would somehow get to her. Then she told him about Laura Nelson.

“I suppose I was always quiet, but I used to have friends. I was confident. But from the moment we left our house in the middle of the night, leaving almost everything we owned behind, I was paralyzed. I didn’t make a single friend in Fairfield. I felt like I’d had my tongue cut out. People would ask me questions and I couldn’t think of the answer fast enough because it wasn’t true. I’ve never been a very good liar,” she said apologetically.

He offered her a crooked smile. “I noticed.”

“I suppose you think that’s a good thing.”

“Yes.”

“My life would have been easier if I was a better liar. I might have adjusted.”

“I am sorry for that,” he said, voice low, deep and still gentle.

“That wasn’t my only problem.” She fanned her fingers and again focused on them rather than his face. “I was a dancer. I was in a special school. I’d already performed with the American Ballet Theatre. Because I was considered a dancer with unusual promise, I’d been featured in newspapers and on television. My face could be easily found with an internet search. When we went into Witness Security, I was told I could never dance again. Someone, somewhere, would recognize me.”

He made another sound, gruff and grieving, and held out a hand. “Will you come over here, Allie?”

She shook her head. “Let me finish.”

Nolan nodded. She still couldn’t look directly at him.

“I realize now that my parents’ marriage was probably already in trouble before all this happened. But Mom’s decision ended it, although it dragged on for another year.

“Dad was the third generation to run his family’s company. Of course it had to be sold. He had to find something different to do with his life. I think he felt so much resentment, whatever love he’d had left for Mom died.

“Jason...well, he’s two years older than I am. He was really angry, giving up his friends and having no say in what happened to us. He blamed Mom. When Dad and she split up, he went to live with Dad.” She swallowed. “He was the only person...” It was too much. She couldn’t finish.

“The only person?”

“Who I could be myself with. Chloe.”

“And he moved out.”

“Yes.” Heaven help her, this was hard. She felt naked in a way she’d never been. No, worse—raw. “Then we got word that someone might have found us or at least was getting close. It freaked the U.S. Marshals Service and they decided to move us and give us new identities again.

“They would have done the same for Dad and Jason, even though Mom and Dad weren’t married anymore. In fact, I don’t think they liked it when Dad said no, he was done. And then...and then Jason, too.”

“Did you ever consider staying behind with your father, too? Finishing out your senior year where you were?”

She shook her head. “No. By then, Mom was all I had. And it wasn’t as if I was happy there. I don’t even know who Laura Nelson was. And I know it wasn’t fair, but I felt as if Dad had already abandoned me.” Jason, too. That might have been even more devastating.

“So you became Allie Wright.”

“Yes. Of course, we were given an entirely new background we were supposed to memorize. I didn’t do a very good job with that. I’d already decided when I was Laura that I just wouldn’t answer when people asked questions.”

“Then I started interrogating you.”

She met his eyes for the first time in several minutes. Allie was surprised to find she was smiling, although it felt...not quite right. A distant part of her wondered what that smile looked like. “I kept getting muddled. I guess you noticed. Or I’d go blank and I could see you thinking, ‘What’s that about?’”

“Did you ever consider just telling me the truth? Or—” his tone was pained “—weren’t you serious enough about me to think I was entitled?”

A part of her wanted to protect her mother, not admit to their painful conflict and her own realization that Mom’s decisions all along had been about her. Not her husband, not her son, not her daughter.

“Mom was...scared,” she said carefully. “I told her I wanted to tell you everything. That I had to. She said I couldn’t. That we’d all committed to never looking back. She said I am Allie Wright and the past doesn’t matter.” She was very close to breaking down. “But it does. It does,” Allie finished in a whisper.

“God.” Nolan moved then, as if he couldn’t wait another minute. He scooped her out of her chair and returned to his, sitting with her on his lap, wrapped securely in his powerful arms. “Oh, damn, Allie. I wish I’d known.”

Her cheeks were wet when she pushed back enough to see his face. She had to ask. “Have I ruined everything?”