CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Luke’s phone rang and he saw that Reese was calling, his heart fell into his stomach. God. Reese calling could only mean… He hesitated, unwilling to hear the words that his mother was gone. The phone rang again and he reluctantly hit the talk button. “Hello?”
“Luke, is Maggie there?”
“Maggie?” Relief poured through him. Then Reese’s words registered in his brain. “I thought she was with you and Mom this afternoon.”
“She left. There was some…upset, and she ran off. Can you check whether she made it back to the lodge all right? I’ve phoned Phyllis and she’s not at her house.”
Luke pushed his chair away from the desk and got to his feet, frightened by the alarm he heard in his stepfather’s voice. “What happened? What kind of upset?”
Reese hesitated. “I think it’s best if you talk to Maggie. Please, Luke. Check if she’s there and phone me back right away. If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’m going out to look for her.”
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
He ended the call and stuck his phone in his pocket. He ran to the front entry to see if his truck was in the parking lot, but there was no sign of it.
He ran to the kitchen, where he found Celeste icing a cake. “Celeste, have you heard from Maggie?”
“No, not since she left to go to your mother’s house. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. My stepfather says she left after some sort of argument. I’ve got to find her. If you see her or hear from her, call my cell right away.”
“I will.”
He hurried back to the office for his jacket. Please, please, please don’t let anything bad happen to Maggie.
He needed a vehicle, fast. Harper was working in the dining room, but he didn’t want to alarm her, at least not until he knew what was going on. He found Ethan shovelling snow off the front step.
“I need to borrow your truck. It’s an emergency.” He gave him a brief account of his conversation with Reese.
Ethan stuck his hand into the pocket of his parka, pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to him. “Find out what’s going on. Call me as soon as you can.”
Luke nodded and sprinted to Ethan’s truck.
Once he reached the main road, he didn’t know which way to turn. Would she be somewhere between the lodge and Minnewasta? Or had she passed the lodge and continued up the road?
Something told him she’d need time to think through whatever his mother had said. He turned left, taking the road going away from Minnewasta, deeper into the forest and lake country. As he sped away, he hoped to hell his intuition was right.
His heart slowed its frantic pace when he found his truck parked in a lookout spot at the top of a hill overlooking a lake. The view of the lake was obscured since snowplows used the small parking lot as a snow dump. He pulled up beside her. Maggie was behind the wheel staring at the snowbank in front of her, the ignition turned off.
He called both Reese and Ethan to tell them he’d found her, then left Ethan’s truck and slipped into the passenger seat of his truck. Maggie acknowledged his presence with a brief turn of her head. Then, she stared straight ahead once more.
“They lied to me, Luke. Everyone lied to me. Why would they do that?”
“Who lied, Maggie? What happened?”
She turned back to him, her eyes bleak. “Your mother, my grandparents, everyone who knew the truth. I don’t know who I am anymore. Who am I, Luke?”
“Sweetheart, you’re not making sense. Tell me what happened.”
“Apparently, my father is not who I thought he was my whole life. Abby told me I was born of an affair my mother had with an old flame of hers. She says he was the love of Miranda’s life.” She gave a bitter laugh, the sound angry. “You want to know the funny part? Miranda and her boyfriend began their affair when she was fourteen and he was eighteen. Sound familiar?”
Luke’s head whirled with this news. No wonder she was upset. “Yeah.”
“My grandparents did their best to keep them apart. I’ll bet they couldn’t believe their bad luck when the same exact scenario happened with us. How fascinating that my story so echoed my mother’s. I might have appreciated the irony if I’d known.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie.” He didn’t know what else to say.
Her mouth twisted. “You know what else is similar? This so-called love of her life left her at one point. Isn’t that amazing? Talk about history repeating itself.”
Luke couldn’t move and barely breathed. He was afraid to speak. Afraid that whatever came out of his mouth would be wrong. Afraid she would demand to know the truth, a truth she had every right to know.
“For ten years, I’ve wondered what I did to make you go away.” She took a shuddering breath, her hands gripping the steering wheel. “You were everything to me. When I found you with that girl, and you told me you didn’t want me, my heart was ripped from my chest. A part of me died that day.”
Her anguish hit him like a physical blow. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did. Why? And what are we doing now? Am I a convenient bed warmer until something better comes along?”
“No! You’re everything to me, too.” He caressed her cheek. “I love you, Maggie. I always have.”
She pushed his hand away. “You love me? You’ve always loved me? How am I supposed to believe that? You tell me you don’t want anything to do with me and then I don’t hear from you for ten years. Not a word. No explanation, no ‘How are you doing?’ Nothing.”
“I wanted to talk to you, to hear your voice. You don’t know how many times I picked up the phone those first couple of years.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Luke closed his eyes in surrender. He couldn’t evade the truth any longer. She deserved to know. “You were right when you said history repeated itself with us. Your grandparents did their best to keep us apart, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“After your grandfather found us together, he told me if I didn’t leave you alone, he was going to have me charged with rape. You were underage and it didn’t matter that the love we made was consensual.”
She averted her eyes. “So you left for California.”
“No. I told him if I left, you would follow me. You’d never believe I would abandon you.”
Maggie lifted her gaze to his, her brow furrowing in confusion. “But you left. I don’t understand.”
“Your grandfather knew as well as I did that you wouldn’t leave me, even if he sent me to jail. I was scared, but I stood my ground. I told him if he sent me to jail, you’d never forgive him.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have,” she whispered.
“Bill understood that, too. So, he dangled a carrot.”
Her eyes turned wary. “What did he do?”
Luke swallowed, his throat closing. This was the hardest part. “He made me a deal. He said if I made you believe I wasn’t interested in you anymore, he’d pay for me to go to school in California.” Luke swallowed again. Aside from leaving Maggie, confessing the reason he’d left was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. “I took the deal.”
“You what?”
“I took the deal. I accepted money from your grandfather so I could get away from Minnewasta. So I could have a life.”
She stared at him, first in disbelief, and gradually in revulsion as the truth sank in. “You sold me out.”
“You know how it was for me here. If I’d stayed, I would have been Jerry Field’s bastard son for the rest of my life. The bastard son of a bastard son. I needed to make a life for myself.”
“So you sacrificed me to get it.”
“I couldn’t see any other way out!” Even as he said the words, he knew she was right. No matter how often he’d told himself they were both too young and he’d done the only thing he could, he knew he’d sacrificed her to get the life he wanted.
Except, the life he’d created had been empty without her.
She turned away from him, her hands dropping from the steering wheel into her lap where she clutched them tightly together. “I think you should go. I’ll bring your truck back to the lodge as soon as I get my things from Phyllis’ house. I’ll stay with Harper and Ethan until I can find a place of my own.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t hurt my grandmother because of me.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply as if holding back a torrent of emotion. “I’ll talk to Phyllis. Once you’re gone, perhaps we can be roommates again. All I know is I can’t stay at her house while you’re there.”
He grabbed her arm, desperate for her to listen, to forgive. “Please, can’t we talk about this?”
She jerked her arm away as if she couldn’t stand his touch. “There’s nothing to talk about. Please go, Luke.”
The sting of her rejection cut deep. He watched her profile as she stared out the windshield, her expression as cold as the snowbank in front of his truck. She wasn’t going to get over this. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could stop his world from crumbling at his feet.
“I’m sorry, Maggie.”
There wasn’t anything more to say. He opened the door and pushed himself out of the cab. Numbly, he opened the driver’s side door of Ethan’s truck and slid behind the wheel. He watched as Maggie put his truck into reverse and sped out of the parking lot.
Luke rested his head against the steering wheel. It was over.
Ethan gently touched Maggie’s shoulder and she jerked in alarm, too deep in agony to notice he’d entered the living room. Harper held her tighter and stroked her hair in a soothing caress.
“Sorry, Maggie,” Ethan said quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Scarlet’s here.” He turned to Harper. “I’m going out for a while, sweetheart. I’ll be back later.”
Maggie sat up and shook her head. “You don’t have to do that, Ethan. This is your house.”
He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. The gesture was so tender, and so brother-like, it made her eyes sting.
“I think I do. Whatever’s going on, you need to talk to your sisters about it.”
He left the room, patting Scarlet’s arm as he passed her on his way out. Scarlet walked toward her, her brows knitting together in concern. “Honey, whatever’s wrong, we’ll figure it out it. Okay?”
Maggie jumped off the couch and went to her, letting her sister wrap her arms around her and give her comfort. Until that moment, she’d kept the tears at bay, even as she’d said goodbye to Phyllis. She’d come to Harper’s house with all her belongings, only telling her she couldn’t stay in the same house as Luke. Harper comforted her and didn’t pry.
But now there was no stopping the tears. She cried for her mother and for the man she’d believed all her life to be her father. And she cried for herself and Luke, for the life they could never have together.
“Oh, baby girl. I’m sorry.” Scarlet led her back to the couch and made her sit. Harper held her close and murmured soothing words in her ear. Maggie cried until she was empty inside.
Scarlet stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry you had a falling out with Luke. You looked so happy together, I’d hoped he’d decided to stay. Is that why you argued? Because he’s determined to go back to California?”
Maggie shook her head. Time for the truth. The whole truth.
She told them about the intense relationship she and Luke had had ten years ago, about his desire to go away to school, and how she’d learned he’d taken money from their grandfather to leave Minnewasta. To leave her.
“Oh, Maggie. I’m sorry you were hurt like this,” Harper said.
“So am I.” Tears shone in Scarlet’s eyes. “I wanted you to be happy the way Harper and I are.”
Maggie nodded and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears. She’d wanted that, too.
Harper linked her fingers with hers. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think I understand why Grampa did what he did. You weren’t even fifteen, and you were having a sexual relationship with Luke. Grandma and Grampa were trying to protect you. Their methods were heavy-handed, but I know they acted out of love.”
Scarlet squeezed her arm. “And I can see why Luke took the money. Right or wrong, he saw it as his only chance to make something of his life. Luke was a little younger than me, but I remember kids teasing him in school about who his father was and how he’d deserted him.”
Maggie knew all the reasons why Luke wanted to get away. But had lying to her, humiliating her in front of Cheryl Bradley, been his only choice?
Maybe later, when she was thinking more clearly, she could better understand his decisions. Right now, she had to tell her sisters the rest of the story.
“The day Grandma died was the day Luke told me he didn’t want me. But I was determined to find him and make him see we belonged together. Grandma and I argued, and I said some horrible things to her. And then she had the heart attack. If I hadn’t fought with her, if I hadn’t threatened to run away—”
“Stop right there.” Harper put up her hand. “You are in no way responsible for Grandma’s heart attack. She was sick, Maggie. She’d had heart trouble for years, and she’d had a heart attack a couple of years previously. Another attack was going to happen whether you argued with her or not.”
Maggie was shocked to learn about the previous heart attack, but it didn’t excuse her behavior. “If I hadn’t put her under so much stress—”
“Harper is right,” Scarlet said. “You were a teenager trying to cope with a terrible situation. No one blames you, so stop blaming yourself.”
Maggie wasn’t sure she could ever stop blaming herself, but she was relieved to know they didn’t hold her responsible. But even this confession wasn’t the total truth. “There’s more. Much more.”
Scarlet put her hand over her belly as if to protect her unborn child. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
Maggie told them everything Abby had told her about their mother’s affair, starting with the teenage love and the difference in ages that so mirrored events in Maggie’s life. She swallowed hard as she came to the crucial part. “At the end of the summer, Miranda went back to Robert, but she discovered she was pregnant. With me. And both she and Robert knew he couldn’t be my father.”
Harper and Scarlet stared at her as the implications sunk in. Harper’s lips moved but she couldn’t seem to find words. Maggie swallowed and looked at her hands folded neatly in her lap. How odd they appeared so calm when she was churning with anxiety.
“So this means we’re not real sisters,” she said. Tears welled up in her eyes again.
Scarlet sat up straighter. “Not real sisters? What are you talking about?”
Harper gripped her hands. “This information changes nothing. We’re sisters, period.”
“But now we know we have different fathers. We’re only half sisters—”
“I don’t give a damn about fractions.” Harper got on her knees in front of Maggie, squeezing her hands hard. “We’re sisters. We’ve always been sisters and that’s the way it’s always going to be.”
“That’s right.” Scarlet slipped her arm around her shoulders. “Nothing can change the sisterhood of the Lindquist girls.”
“I don’t even know what my last name is supposed to be. I ran away before Abby could tell me Miranda’s boyfriend’s name.”
“You mean the name of your father,” Harper said gently.
“Yes.” She had difficulty thinking of this unknown man as her father.
“I have to admit I’m a little envious,” Scarlet said on a sigh. “You have a chance to get to know your father. That’s something not open to Harper and I.”
“I don’t even know if he’s still alive. And if he is, why has he never come forward?”
Harper cupped her cheek. “You need to find out from Abby. She may be the only person who knows the truth.”
She didn’t need to add that time was quickly running out to discover the secrets that Abby had kept hidden for so long. Heaviness hung unspoken in the air, weighing down their thoughts.