Relative Strangers Part 14

"You could sleep here, Corrie, and just visit the hotel during the day. Not that I'm agreeing it could happen, but if you think she might be turning up when we'd, er, rather be alone, then-"

"If I go back, I'll be available to both of you." Her cheeks were tinged with pink. "Except in that one way, of course."

"What are you suggesting, Corrie? That we be reduced to coming back here for an occasional nooner?"

She blinked at him in surprise, taken aback by the bite in his words. Maybe he'd been wrong, he thought. If she didn't understand how he felt about this supernatural c.r.a.p, what real hope did they have for a future together?

"Lucas," she said gently, reaching up to touch his jaw with her fingertips. Just that slight contact jolted through him like an electric shock. "I'm sorry you're upset by my sense of obligation to Adrienne, but I am committed to going on."

He sought in vain for the words to convince her to give up her quest. He did not believe in the paranormal. She already knew that. It was a mark of how much he cared for her that he'd endured as much talk about it as he had, but now she'd stretched his patience to the limit.

If she'd been anyone else but the woman he loved, he'd have kicked her out of his hotel, out of his life, long before now.

Corrie sighed again as they stepped out into the crisp New England morning and walked toward the van. "It hurts to know something is true and have my belief tolerated rather than accepted," she said.

"I can't change my convictions any more than you can, Corrie."

"At least we're honest with each other." She sounded resigned but terribly unhappy, as if she felt this spelled the beginning of the end of their relations.h.i.+p.

"Corrie, don't give up on us." She was seated in the van now. He stood next to it, her hands clasped in his, looking up into her eyes.

"I have to resolve the mystery of Adrienne Sinclair if we're to have any hope of working things out between us."

Not what he wanted to hear.

He released her and stalked around to the driver's side. He could see it all now-the two of them recruited to appear on some tacky television talk show with the theme "Women Who See Ghosts and the Men Who Love Them Anyway."

They were halfway back to the hotel before he spoke again. "What do you want to do next?" he asked. "About Adrienne, I mean."

"Oh, Lucas. I wish I knew."

He was trying. He really was. But her vagueness didn't help. Why couldn't she just decide she'd imagined the whole thing and let them get on with what was really important?

Sliding toward him, she rested her head against his shoulder. "I can't seem to think what to do about anything, not even how I feel about what's happening between us."

"You don't imagine Adrienne pushed us into bed together, I hope."

That won a faint chuckle from Corrie. "No. I know for certain whose idea that was."

Remind her of how good it was, he told himself. Avoid talking about the supernatural.

But the second part of that plan couldn't work without Corrie's cooperation and she seemed determined to discuss Adrienne.

"It's the whole problem of what she wants." Corrie sat up as the hotel came into view. "That's what keeps nagging at me. I've thought over everything she's conveyed to me, and there's just no rhyme or reason to it. Most of the time I don't think I've even gotten half of what she's trying to tell me."

"Maybe there's a simple explanation for that," he muttered as he stopped the van under the portico. He waved off the valet, needing a few more minutes of privacy.

"And that is?" Corrie's tone was brittle, as if she, too, had reached the end of her rope on this subject.

"Maybe what you've seen of Adrienne had more to do with that knock you took to the head than you're willing to admit. Maybe-"

She reached for the door handle. He barely caught her in time to keep her from opening it, grasping her groping fingers with one hand and gripping the shoulder closest to him with the other.

"It's no good, Corrie. I want you in my life. I can accept that you sincerely believe you saw Adrienne. That doesn't affect the way I feel about you. But you'll have to accept the truth sometime. She isn't real, Corrie. There are no such things as ghosts."

Corrie's eyes were downcast. He felt a s.h.i.+ver shudder through her slender frame. "I was wrong," she murmured.

His heart leapt with hope. "Thank G.o.d."

Finally, she looked up at him. "Not about Adrienne. About us."

Tears welled up and slid down her cheeks. Confused, he could only stare helplessly at her.

"I thought it didn't matter," she whispered. "That I could continue looking for Adrienne and you would tolerate my doing so. But this goes deeper, doesn't it? It isn't just that you don't believe in ghosts, Lucas. It's that you don't have any faith in me.

When Corrie returned to her hotel room, alone, she noticed the lapel pin lying on top of the Sinclair family tree. She automatically picked it up, went to the armoire, and pinned it back on the blazer where it belonged. Then she returned the chart to its file folder.

Her mind was elsewhere.

The night before at Lucas's cabin, sometime after he'd demonstrated his appreciation of black peignoirs, she'd come to a realization. She'd gone and fallen in love with the man.

It seemed impossible after knowing him such a short time, but she didn't question her conclusion. No other emotion could account for the way she felt-elated and totally miserable at the same time.

"Great timing, Corrie," she grumbled to herself. "And so intelligent too."

For in spite of their traumatic scene in the van just now, she still hoped they might have a future together. Could she plan forever with a man who couldn't believe what she said without outside proof? That did not bode well for a trusting relations.h.i.+p.

It did not, however, mean he didn't love her.

Her first reaction had been to think that if he loved her, he'd accept her beliefs even if he did not share them. That Lucas had tried to change her mind had been a crus.h.i.+ng blow. But now that she'd had time to think, she realized there might have been another reason for what he was doing. If he did love her, it made sense that he might fear for her sanity in a situation he did not understand.

She wasn't happy with that explanation, but she could put herself in his place. After all, she hadn't wanted to believe in ghosts at first, either.

Corrie thought about going down to his office to try again to explain herself, but she fought the impulse. It was too soon. They both needed time to cool down. Barge in on him now and they'd only end up quarreling again.

There was but one chance for them. She had to fulfill Adrienne's mission. Only then would she be free to build a future with Lucas.

She was startled when a knock sounded at her bedroom door. Not Adrienne, she thought with a wry smile. That much was certain.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"It's your father." Donald Ballantyne's gruff voice was unmistakable.

"Daddy?" she whispered in astonishment.

"Corrie, let me in." He sounded worried.

She quickly opened the door, then froze. For the first time, Corrie saw how elderly her father looked. He'd aged a great deal in the last year, until he seemed almost . . . frail.

"Daddy, what are you doing here?" She managed to get that much out before she was engulfed in a bear hug. He didn't feel frail. Relief surged through her at that realization.

"I tried phoning you yesterday. Couldn't reach you."

Holding her away from him, he studied her, taking in the scab on her forehead and probably noticing the shadows under her eyes as well. She didn't think she wanted to explain to him the reason she hadn't gotten much sleep either of the last two nights. Or where she'd been.

"I had a nice drive up," he told her. "Started yesterday afternoon. Stayed over in Vermont. Came the rest of the way today. Rachel's been entertaining me while we waited for you to get back."

His gaze fell on her overnight bag, still packed, sitting on the floor by the bed.

How much, Corrie wondered, had Rachel told him? For all the problems between them, he was still her father, and a father tended to condemn any man he suspected of sleeping with his little girl.

That was all she needed-a duel over her honor!

But Donald Ballantyne avoided that subject entirely. Instead he held up one finger to indicate she should wait a minute and ducked back across the hall to Rachel's room.

Rachel appeared in the open doorway and gave Corrie a what-else-could-I-do shrug as her father retrieved his suitcase. Later, Rachel would no doubt want a full report on the time Corrie had spent with Lucas, as well as on the forthcoming session with her father, but at the moment she seemed relieved to be out of the line of fire.

Donald put the heavy suitcase on Corrie's bed to open it. He looked a little embarra.s.sed. "After I couldn't reach you by phone, I realized it would be easier to show you what I found. This way you can explain to me what it all means."

He withdrew a heavy leather-bound book from the battered Samsonite case that dated from the time before soft-sided luggage. "I found that photograph you asked about. It was marking a page in this."

"This" was the family Bible, and the marked page was one on which births were entered. The first name leapt out at Corrie: Marguerite Mead, born May 5, 1878, Waycross Springs, Maine.

"I don't understand," Corrie murmured. What was Marguerite from the Mead/Sinclair family tree doing in Alice Ballantyne's family Bible?

"I noticed the town," her father said. "I figured there must be some connection."

"To Marguerite?"

"Your mother always called her Daisy," he explained. "Look on the page for marriages."

The name there was "Daisy Skinner, widow."

The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. Just as the second Marguerite Mead, Stanley Kelvin's mother, had used the nickname Rita, the first had gone by Daisy. Marguerite Mead Skinner Hanover was Horatio Mead's missing daughter. She was also Corrie's great-grandmother.

Corrie couldn't imagine why she hadn't seen it sooner. Oh, the fact that the Meads and Sinclairs apparently thought Marguerite had died at the age of eighteen had thrown her off, and she still couldn't explain that mistake on Joyce's chart, but she'd known ever since high school language cla.s.ses that marguerite was French for daisy. And the pin she'd found not an hour earlier on the dresser was shaped like a daisy. Obviously Adrienne had left that, and on top of the red file folder containing the Sinclair family tree.

"Okay, Adrienne," she said softly. "I've got it now."

"Corrie?"

Her father sounded puzzled. And concerned.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said. "You have no idea how important this is." She set the Bible aside to hug him, whispering, "I'm glad you came."

He seemed pleased by her words and hugged her back. Then, both of them a little embarra.s.sed by the display of emotion, they separated. Donald went to stand by the window and look out at the snow-covered landscape.

"Wanted to see the place for myself," he said after a moment. "For Alice's sake." He fell silent again, as if he was carefully weighing his words. When he spoke, his voice sounded gruffer. "Wanted to spend some time with my only daughter too. I don't want to lose you, Corrie. Family's pretty important. Maybe the most important thing there is in life."

"Oh, Daddy." She knew how hard it had been for him to express his feelings. In swift steps she crossed the room to stand beside him. "You're so right."

For the next half hour, they said things to each other that should have been said years earlier. Corrie was just glad they hadn't waited any longer, that they hadn't missed this chance.

"Family's important," her father said again. "That's why I had to come in person."

She laughed softly, remembering what he'd brought her. It seemed they were all one family here.

"What's so funny?" her father asked.

She told him some of what had been happening to her at the Sinclair House. He didn't even blink at the idea of his daughter seeing a ghost.

"And if there weren't already clues enough to show that our Daisy and Horatio's Marguerite were the same person," she concluded, "then there's the name of Marguerite's mother on Joyce's chart. She was Cordelia La Fleur. I imagine I was named after her."

"Could well be that you were. I remember your mother saying she'd gotten the name from somewhere way back in your grandmother's family."

"So now all I have to do is figure out what Adrienne wants me to do with this information. At least now that I know I'm descended from her niece, I can understand why she was able to communicate with me. And with Mama. I just wish I knew what it was that turned Adrienne into a ghost in the first place and how I'm supposed to help her find peace."

"You'll figure it out and then you'll find a way," her father said. "You're resourceful. Always have been. Your mother was very proud of you and so am I."

"Thanks, Daddy. I wish everyone had that much faith in me."

"Everyone? Or just this Lucas Sinclair?"

In her account of the events since Christmas Eve, Corrie had tried to gloss over her feelings for Lucas, since their future was so uncertain. She'd avoided mentioning New Year's Eve and the following day and night entirely. Her father hadn't been fooled, though. She suspected he'd gotten an earful from Rachel, and his paternal instinct was strong as well.

"Corrie," he asked, "are you in love with this man?"

When she didn't answer, he patted her hand.

"Never mind. I'll take a look at the fellow for myself. Did I tell you I promised to buy Rachel lunch?" He headed for the door. "Join us?"

What choice did she have? It was nearly lunchtime and she had to eat. Besides, with any luck at all, if they ate in the hotel dining room, she'd get another chance to communicate with Adrienne.

They collected Rachel and went down to the lobby. Lucas caught sight of them as they exited the elevator. For an instant, as he stared at her father's hand on her arm, Corrie saw a flash of what was unmistakably jealousy in his eyes.

She found that rea.s.suring.

Introductions were stilted, but pa.s.sed without incident, though Rachel was chortling to herself as they entered the dining room.

Conversation turned general over lunch. Corrie had just begun to relax when her father dropped the next bombsh.e.l.l.

"I think I'll stay a few days here at the Sinclair House," he announced.

Corrie bit back a groan. She was glad of the chance to finish mending fences with her father, but she shuddered to think of the effect his presence might have on her unsettled relations.h.i.+p with Lucas.

She also had the uneasy feeling they'd just acquired one more matchmaker.