One Small Secret

But that was water under the bridge now. He was back, and she had a choice to make. She could tell him about their daughter and pray he wouldn’t do something that would forever change her and Lockey’s hard-won contentment, or she could decide that Mark was not father material. She could let him donate the Hall and go back to Zurich none the wiser. And her life—and her daughter‘s—wouldn’t change one iota.

But that decision would have to wait. Now wasn’t the time to spring a surprise on him. She didn’t want to watch him run away. Nor did she want to expose Lockey to the hurt and rejection she’d gone through herself. Mark Griffin was no longer the young man who’d won her over with his idealism and loneliness. Now he was a man, full-grown and immensely powerful. Mark had the money to change both their lives—and not necessarily for the better.

No, she had to have time to think. She had to do what was best for Lockey.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Well, I really should get back. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just worried.” She smiled. “But I don’t think it would be foolish to keep the front gate locked. I think you should be careful.”

He glanced around. “That’s why I came here. To get away from the need to be careful.”

She almost released a bitter smile. “Natchez is like any other place. Not without its perils.”

Their gazes met. The silence between them grew heavy.

“Well, again, please excuse my barging in here.”

“How long has it been since I saw you here, Honor?”

Each word seemed to slice at her She felt irrational tears come to her eyes. “Look, I really do have to get back.”

“Yes, I forgot about your daughter. Is there a husband waiting for you back at the Retreat, as well?”

She thought she heard something in his voice—maybe even a bitterness of his own—but she wondered if it was only her wishful thinking. Sometimes dreams could be so strong they impaired the judgment.

“Nope. Just me and Lockey.”

“What about your dad?”

“He’s gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded, then remembered the day when Mark got the call about his parents’ deaths in a bush plane off the coast of Africa. He’d been inconsolable. He flew off to the funeral, then to Zurich to be taught all the things about Griffin Industries his Wharton education had missed. She’d never seen him again, never heard from him again. It was as if he’d never existed, except for the one small thing he’d left behind with her.

“I’ve really got to go.” The unshed tears in her eyes were stinging like acid. One more minute and they would flood over, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to explain her feelings tonight.

Walking out of Blackbird Hall like Cinderella at midnight, she didn’t even notice he was following her.

“Honor.”

Her name on his lips made her halt.

“Honor, I came back here to donate the place to the Trust.”

“Yes, you told me that.” She didn’t turn around. Suddenly she was wildly grateful for the bad lighting in the foyer.

“I also came back here because I wanted to think. Maybe even...to remember.”

Her breath stopped.

“Things haven’t gone so well for me. I don’t know if you read the papers, but I—”

“Yes, I read about your girlfriend being killed in London. I’m truly sorry.” She couldn’t have missed the story. Ralia Pembroke, supermodel and acknowledged steady of millionaire Mark Griffin. The woman’s tall exoticism had made Honor die a little inside every time she saw a cosmetic commercial.

“But what the news didn’t tell you is that she was killed with my best friend, George, in that car accident on the bridge. And that they were both stark naked when the limo went over the rail.”

Honor paused. He was right; she hadn’t known anything about that.

Suddenly the bitterness she’d imagined in his voice was there for real. “I was thinking about giving her a ring, Honor. I knew she wasn’t right for me, but I still wanted something—something I knew I was missing. I just couldn’t get it from her. Afterward, I only knew one thing. I had to come here. I had to.”

She didn’t turn to look at him; she was too afraid of his expression and what it might do to her selfpossession.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands, knowing her composure was breaking like a dam. “Really,” she added, as she sped out the door and down the drive toward home, not once looking back.

Three

Mark watched her go, and all in all he thought he showed admirable restraint. He’d simply stood on the veranda; he’d said nothing; done nothing. When what he really wanted to do was pull her back, take her hand and force her to sit inside, so he could look at her again, close his eyes and listen to her voice. Remember.

She’d been here all the time. Honor Shaw. Somehow, he hadn’t imagined she would still be at the Retreat. He’d thought she would be in a tract house on the outskirts of town, nesting with her husband and two-point-three kids. All those long, bitter nights thinking about the man who’d gotten her—the nice average guy he’d pictured in his mind—had been nothing but a waste of energy. The guy had to have been a loser. If she was divorced now, it was her ex’s fault. No man in his right mind would let Honor Shaw slip away from him. He knew that only too well.

He reached out to stroke Rosie, who stood at his feet. The dog, as always, was a comfort to him. She went everywhere with him. Rosie had been in more private jets and boardrooms than most Homo sapiens. The people he dealt with accommodated him, but he knew everyone thought he was just another rich eccentric who had to be indulged when he brought in his wolfhound. They didn’t know that Rosie was more than a dog. They didn’t know she was his walking, breathing tie to one summer when love had come up to him, put her hands gently on his face and pulled him down for a kiss.

He felt the tightness in his chest and realized he’d been holding his breath ever since she’d fled. But he still couldn’t comprehend that Honor Shaw, from the small, nowhere town in Mississippi, was still here, as fixed in time as she was fixed in his mind.

Calling Rosie, he left the veranda and went inside to the parlor. He poured a scotch and sipped it. In the background, the CD player played a lush melancholy tune.

He almost wanted to laugh. What a reunion. Honor Shaw had come back to him. But only for fifteen quick minutes, long enough to tell him that two people wanted him dead.

He already knew that. Everyone wanted something from him. They either wanted to rob him or profit from him or kill him. The whole world was draining him of his very soul, and the one person he would gladly have given it up for had just come and gone like an instant message on his computer screen, and she wanted nothing from him.

He reached out to stroke Rosie’s head again. The dog yawned and thumped her wiry tail on the polished floor.

Rosie was still his, though. The memories were still his. Sure, they’d been tainted by reality. He’d thought he and Honor had had something special that summer; she obviously thought it had been nothing more than a fling. He’d left for Zurich; she’d started Old Miss and dived right into another relationship.

Okay, so maybe the guy had soured on her; maybe she was free now. But it didn’t change anything. She clearly hadn’t felt what he’d felt that summer. He’d never even heard from her after he left the Hall. There was no way he would resume any relationship with her, knowing he couldn’t hold her heart.

He looked into his scotch. A darkness seeped into him. No, Honor Shaw would have to feel as allconsumingly about him as he had about her for almost nine years now. He was known as cold, tough, an all-or-nothing corporate raider, and he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than a hundred percent Especially not from some girl in a backwater town who thought she could pick up and toss away a man’s heart like it was so much river rock. If he could even imagine tangling himself up with her again, the first and foremost thing would be to teach her a lesson about men like him. She didn’t know his kind; he’d bet on it. He hadn’t been this man the last time he’d come to Natchez.

But the world had changed him. She had changed him.

A shadowed smile tipped the corner of his lips. And maybe it was time to let her see that.

“You look terrible, girl,” Doug announced as he sat in the Retreat’s kitchen the next morning.

“That’s because I’m spending way too much time making police reports.” Honor poured him a cup of black coffee. Her eyes were red, her cheeks pale, but they had nothing to do with police. Rather, they were the result of staying up way too late and crying a river of tears.

“I got it all down, and if those two ever show their faces in Natchez, I’ll take ‘em in for questioning. No doubt about it.” Doug sipped his coffee.

She sat across from him. Hopelessness seemed to weigh on her shoulders, holding her down. “He says he gets people threatening to kill him all the time. He was really blasé about my news. I have to say, it kind of shocked me. I didn’t know him anymore. Not really.”