Rachel lifted her head to look at him. “You haven’t asked her about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know how to bring it up,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to ruin her Christmas or her upcoming wedding by telling her the things Roger implied about our father. And she seemed so pleased that I’d come back, I didn’t want her to think it was only to find out what had become of the bracelet.”
“You came back because the bracelet was connected in your mind to possible violence, and you wanted to make sure your sister wasn’t affected by it.”
“Something like that.”
“Or maybe you just needed an excuse to come home.”
He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t looking for excuses. I could have come home any time I wanted. I just thought it was better, for Emily’s sake, if I didn’t. And I was right. I got her to admit that people have been driving her crazy with questions since they’ve heard I’m back. Asking her stupid questions—like, is it true I’ve been in prison for the past fifteen years? Or am I really a Mafia hit man?”
Rachel stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish. That old biddy, Martha Godwin, even stormed Wade’s office, demanding to know why he would allow his son to be around a man who raised all kinds of hell around here before getting away with murder.”
She winced. “Martha flagged me down when I went to the pharmacy for my grandmother yesterday,” she admitted. “She asked if it bothered me knowing you were in town. I told her that you had every bit as much right to be here as I did, and that I should think people would have better things to do than gossip, especially at Christmas. She didn’t say much to me after that, thank goodness.”
“What about you?” he asked, turning the question back to her. “Did you volunteer to help your grandmother settle her affairs so you would have an excuse to come back?”
“I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“Would you have come back if you’d known?”
Would she have come if she’d known she would see Lucas? If she’d had any clue they would end up here in the rock house again? If she’d known they would finally make love, even though it was without promises or commitments or words of love?
“Yes,” she answered simply.
Whatever happened from this point, she would allow herself no regrets about this morning.
Lucas tightened his arm around her, as if her answer pleased him.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked him.
“This minute?”
Suspecting he’d deliberately misinterpreted her, she shook her head. “Are we going to forget about finding my father’s wallet? Write it off as a mystery that will never be solved?”
Lucas was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know what else to do about it.”
“You don’t think we should look around? To see if we can find any other clues?”
“Rachel, it’s been fifteen years since Roger found the bracelet and, presumably, the wallet. Twenty-four years since Nadine and Al disappeared. Even if there’s anything to find, we’re talking about fifty acres of wooded land. It would take weeks, at a minimum, to search it all.”
They didn’t have weeks. Rachel bit her lip, remembering Lucas’s plans to only stay through Christmas. He’d given no indication that he’d changed his mind.
“Maybe it’s best to leave the past buried, so to speak,” he went on. “As far as I can tell, the break-in at Emily’s house was completely unrelated to any of this. She’s safe and happy. You and your mother have dealt with the past in your own ways. I’ve got a life in California. What good would it do any of us to start poking around in old scandals?”
“Maybe we would find some answers to what really happened.”
“Would it make you feel any better to learn that your father was murdered? Or that he and Nadine buried all evidence of their identities and took off to start a new life together? Or that one of them killed the other, then disappeared? Or maybe that your mother found them together and killed them? Or any of the other half dozen or more scenarios we could come up with if we let our imaginations get out of control?”
Rachel shivered, suddenly cold. “No. I don’t suppose any of those possibilities would make me feel any better.”
He pulled her closer. “I didn’t think so.”