Promise Me (Book One of the Kirkland Family)

Promise Me: Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Justin left the store that morning with one thing on his mind...get to Lawna Miles before she got to Hannah.  Unfortunately, the problem was that he had no idea where the woman was holed up at.  But he had a plan.

Parking outside of Hannah’s house, he figured he’d get inside, break into her computer and look up her recent phone calls through her phone company account.  Maybe, that way, he could see if the phone Hannah’s mother called from could be traced back to her.

Mrs. Beale was watering her flower bed as he exited his truck, so he waved to her and called out, “Just checking on Hannah’s guinea pig today!”  Hopefully, the neighbor woman wouldn’t call her son-in-law on him.  Mrs. Beale smiled and waved back, not giving him a second look.  Justin let out a breath.

He found Hannah’s secret key and let himself into her house.  Immediately, he went into her study and powered up her computer.  And thankfully, Hannah was quite organized, so he found her folder containing her utility bills right off.  But then, he needed her username and password for the phone company.  That took time.  Eventually, through some savvy computer skills, he was able to log on and scroll through the list of incomming phone calls to her house.

Bingo.  Two different numbers popped up while she was gone to Memphis, and only one wasn’t an 800 number.  Justin  pulled out his cell phone and called it.

“Rainbow Motel,” a scratchy, bored voice said into the phone.

“Yeah...I’m looking for Lawna Miles,” he said.  “Is she staying there?”

“I don’t give out that information,” the voice said, just as bored as ever.

Justin tapped his finger on the desk.  She might have checked out already, if she ever did stay there.  A brilliant idea popped into his head.  “Well, this is her oncologist’s receptionist.  We’re trying to get a hold of Ms. Miles to reschedule an appointment.”

“Oh...right.  Yeah, hang on, I’ll connect you.”

But Justin didn’t wait for the connection.  He ended the call, gave Teddy some fresh hay -- since that was his excuse for being there -- and hightailed it to the Rainbow Motel.  It was a single-story, cheap, seedy place in the city near the interstate.  And there was only one rental car parked outside of a room.

Knowing how Hannah would react if she ever discovered him doing this, Justin barged up to the room and banged on the door.

“Who is it?” a female voice called, suspicion written all over her question.

“Ms. Miles?” Justin addressed her.  “I need to talk to you about your daughter.  Open up.”

For almost a whole minute, no sound emitted from the room.  Then the door cracked open just enough for him to see a pair of hollow eyes looking out above a chain lock.  “Do I know you -- wait, you’re the man who was with Hannah at the airport.”

“I am,” Justin said.  “Open the door.”

“What do you want exactly?”

“I want you to stay away from Hannah.  Don’t tell her the truth about her father,” Justin said, keeping as calm as possible, but the whole mess was tearing him up inside.  “You will destroy her.”

Lawna Miles blinked at him.  Then she closed the door long enough to unhook the chair and swing it open.  “Mark told you?”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out once I realized there was a big secret between you two,” Justin said gruffly, walking past her into the motel room.  The carpet was smashed down into a stained brown color that nearly matched the stained walls and the ugly, quilted blanket on the bed.  It smelled of mildew and rot, and the bare light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling flickered as though there was no point in lighting up the small space.  Justin took only a small glance around -- a nightstand held an assortment of prescription pill bottles and an opened suitcase sat on the floor next to the bed -- before turning back to Hannah’s mother, really looking at her.

She’d lost weight...a lot of weight since last weekend.  Her cheeks were sallow and sagging, and her once-red hair was thinned and dull.  She wore a plain t-shirt and some stretch pants, no make-up, no shoes.  It was almost as if she’d already given up.  But if Justin didn’t know any better, he’d never believe this was the same woman that confronted Hannah such a short time ago.

Justin planted his hands on his hips.  Her sorry state wasn’t going to sway him one bit.  She could not tell Hannah the truth.  Hannah’s only happiness during her childhood had been her father.  She adored James Baker.  And now...now all that would crumble to dust at her feet if she ever found out.

Lawna sank to the corner of the bed.  “I...I apologize for my appearance, but I’ve been undergoing some harsh treatments.”

Do not feel sympathy for this woman, he told himself.  “I don’t give a damn about what you’ve been through.  Hannah is the only person I care about, concerning this, so you need to stay away from her.”

She shook her head.  “I wish I could, but I can’t leave this world without telling her that I’ve always loved her.  She was my precious angel, and I had to leave.  I had to!  James loved her so much...from the very start.  I couldn’t...I couldn’t...”

Tears began to dribble from her eyes, but Justin stayed where he was.  Lawna reached over to pluck a tissue from a box and wiped her cheeks.  

“Don’t tell Hannah the truth,” he warned.  “I’ll do anything to keep this from her.  Name your price, woman, and I’ll pay it.  Just stay the hell away from her!”

She wavered a sad smile.  “I don’t need your money.”

Justin grunted as he surveyed the room again.  “Really?”

Lawna looked at what he was looking at, and she said, “I know it doesn’t look like much, but I really don’t need money.  And I never intended to reveal the truth to Hannah.  I only wanted to tell her I love her, and that I’m so sorry for leaving.”

“Then write her a f*cking note,” he growled.  

Swallowing thickly, she drifted her gaze to a notepad and folder on the scarred desk in front of the window.  “I was...I am.  If I don’t survive this surgery, then I wanted her to have something of mine...something worth more than me.  She’ll inherit everything I have.  It’s all right there.  I had a house in Malibu that I sold last year, and I’ve saved nearly every spare penny, putting it in a trust fund for her.  It’s all hers.”

Justin took a step toward her.  “Dammit!  Hannah never wanted your money!  She only wanted to be loved!  She wanted a mother that didn’t betray her!  She wanted a normal family, a normal childhood, a normal life!  And you ruined all that for her!  It’s all your damn fault!”

Again she shook her head.  “She was happy.  I believe that with all my heart.  James was happy.  If I stayed, I would done a lot more damage.”

With total frustration -- she argued so calmly like Hannah -- Justin thrust his fingers through his hair.  “What is it going to take to leave her alone?”

“Nothing.”

“No, wrong answer,” he said darkly.

Lawna stood up, swaying precariously as she did, her eyes glinting harshly.  “There is nothing you can give me, or do, or say, that will make me change my mind.  My surgery is Tuesday.  I came here to have it instead of in California because of Hannah, and I will see my daughter one more time before that.”

Justin could see it in her expression.  She meant it, which meant he had to try another tactic.  Get to Hannah before Lawna got to her.  He left that motel in a furious daze.  He had four days to keep Hannah out of sight, away from her house, her store, her normal activities.  And to threaten Mark to keep his trap shut about the whole thing.  He should have done that when he saw Mark earlier, but he wasn’t thinking straight.  Now he was.  He’d have to enlist the help of his parents -- without telling them why -- but maybe they could rent an RV and take a long camping trip somewhere.  Or he could just keep her out on the farm, or...

Or hell...he knew as well as anyone Hannah wouldn’t want to leave town again, not after getting back from Memphis.  But there had to be something he could do...something...

*****

Hannah and Josie followed Kim out of the doctor’s office.  Kim clutched a handful of pamphlets and literature about pregnancies and complications that could arise for a woman late in her birthing years.  The three females made a serene procession until they reached Kim’s car and all got in.  Then Kim burst into tears.

Happy tears.

“I’m pregnant!  After all these years...I’m pregnant!”

Hannah smiled at her.  “Yeah...I heard.”  And Josie giggled from the back seat.

“I’m going to have a baby!”

“That’s usually what happens when a woman is pregnant.”

Kim got out of the car again.  She stood in the parking lot.  Hannah emerged from the passenger side and gazed carefully at her.  “You okay?”

“I can’t drive,” Kim said.  She wiped her eyes.  “I can’t even see.”

Moving around to her, Hannah took the keys from her hands and said, “I’ll drive.  Let’s go celebrate.  What do you want?”

“Champagne,” Kim answered, and Hannah rolled her eyes.

“No drinking,” she said.  “What else do you want to do?”

Josie popped her head out of the window and said, “How about we get some lunch?  I’m starving”

Kim laughed.  “I don’t think I can eat either.”

Hannah propelled Kim around to get into the car, and she slid behind the steering wheel, cranking the ignition.  “We’ll go to that bistro down by the interstate, and then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Over a lunch of Caesar salads, Hannah braved the question and asked, “So, when are you planning to tell the daddy?”

“Tonight, I guess,” Kim replied nervously.  “He’s taking me to dinner, so I guess that’ll be the best time to do it.”

“It might be better to wait until you’re alone,” Hannah suggested.  

Kim nodded.  “Yeah...okay.”

Josie slurped from her milkshake and grinned.  “This is so exciting!  Don’t you think?  Hannah, you’re going to have a baby cousin!”

Both women looked at Josie.  Hannah frowned and said, “Kim and I aren’t related, Josie.”

“No, I meant Mark,” Josie clarified, picking through her lunch.  “Isn’t he like your uncle or something?”

“No.  We’ve just known each other all my life,” Hannah said.

“Oh, okay,” Josie said.  “It’s just that the two of you look a little like each other...you know, same nose, same eyes.  I thought you were related somehow.  I guess I was wrong.”

“We’re just friends,” Hannah clarified, but thinking nothing of Josie’s supposition.  “Mark and my dad were really good buddies.  But I’ve been around him long enough that we’ve probably taken on each other traits.”

Josie smiled.  “Yeah, Daddy said the same about me and you.  He says I’m rolling my eyes like you now, but I’ve always rolled my eyes, so that’s probably why I thought that about you and Mark.  He’s kind of old to be having a baby, though.”

Kim glanced at Hannah -- her fears alight in her blue eyes -- and Hannah offered a comforting smile, but nothing else was said about Mark through the rest of their lunch.  Hannah didn’t want Kim worrying too much.

But once they got back to the farm store, Mark was in a foul mood, and Hannah could smell cigarette smoke on him.  She kept that from Kim, who decided to avoid her baby’s daddy as much as possible until later that night.  Something was bothering Mark, enough for him to go back to smoking...and later that night, she discovered that something was bothering Justin, too.

*****

Justin drove back from seeing Hannah’s mother like the hounds of hell were on his tail.  He needed to speak to Mark again, try to understand everything since he’d been too stunned earlier to make much sense of the revelation.  But now he was so goddamn angry, a swift pounding into the ground would probably be the most likely outcome of talking to the man.  Thankfully, when he got to the farm store, the women were not there, having left together for a few hours, and tracking down Mark was the easiest thing he’d done all day.  He found him, slouched against the side of the warehouse, staring off into nothing, with another cigarette dangling from his fingers.

“We need to talk,” Justin said, walking up the man.  “Alone.”

Mark turned to him, stomped out his cigarette and nodded.  Together, they moved out of earshot of everyone.  Justin scuffed the ground with the toe of his boots.  “I found Lawna...she’s not going to give up.  She’s determined to see Hannah before Tuesday.”

“Why Tuesday?”

“Her surgery.  She claims to have a brain tumor and doesn’t think she’ll survive.”

Mark turned away and sighed.  “I didn’t love her, you know...Lawna...it just happened one night...”

“What happened?  How the hell do you cheat with your best friend’s wife?”

“I swore I’d never tell a soul,” Mark said quietly.  “For James, for Hannah...I just...didn’t think about it, forced it out of my mind, and after a while, Hannah was not mine, never was, but it has always eat me up inside, what I did, how weak I was that night.  Lawna was a beautiful woman, so much like Hannah is now...”

Justin snarled, “You disgust me.  That’s no reason for what you did!”

Mark sunk into himself.  “I know.”

“You know?  No, I don’t think you do!  You cannot stand there and tell me you regret it ever happening, because it shouldn’t have happened!  Hell, man!  I had the worst kind of marriage ever possible, and I never cheated!  Not once!”

Mark stuck his hands into his pocket and looked square at Justin.  He calmly opened his mouth and went on to explain how James Baker brought his pretty young wife back home to Arkansas, how he and James became good friends, and how, on one foolish night, James and Lawna got into a fight over staying here in this town, and Lawna came crying to him.  It all happened very quickly, and Mark had been married at the time, too, but they were lucky when Hannah had been born and she looked so much like her mother that there was never any need to reveal the truth.  But then Lawna’s guilt finally consumed her.  She insisted on a paternity test, and when the results came out, she left.

Mark said, “I know what we did was wrong, but deep down inside, Lawna was a decent person and she saw how one weak moment would eventually destroy her husband’s happiness.  She loved James, very much, too much, but she didn’t want him to blame me or Hannah for it. The only thing that kept me from spilling my guts years ago was that Lawna had her selfish reasons for leaving, too.  She hated it here.  If she hadn’t gone when she did, she might have taken Hannah with her, leaving James anyway.  But she wanted to take complete responsibility, she wanted all the hate to be directed at her, and so she left Hannah, left James, saying she didn’t want to be married anymore and she didn’t want her child.  I have no idea if she ever told James the truth.  He never said anything to me about it, and our friendship never suffered -- at least, never on James’ half.”

Mark paused to take a deep breath.  Justin allowed him his reprieve for a moment, otherwise, he might start that pounding.

“I hated myself for years,” Mark continued.  “I eventually told my wife.  She forgave me, but I could never forgive myself, and we never spoke of it again.  By the time Hannah turned three, I had stopped thinking of her as my child.  She was James’ daughter, through and through.  The two were inseparable.”

Justin inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm down his rampant rage, but it wasn’t doing any good.  “It’s so comforting that you hate yourself.  Do you have any idea what this will do to Hannah?”

Mark pulled up to his full height.  “You think I never thought about that?  Well, you’re wrong!  I know exactly what this will do to her.  She loved her father.  He loved her.  But I was not about to destroy that, not when Lawna had done enough damage because of me!”

Justin got in his face.  “Then why didn’t you leave?”

“I tried!” he growled back.  “I didn’t want to wreck my best friend’s marriage!  I didn’t want to cause him or Hannah any pain!  I didn’t want to see anyone suffer over my stupidity!  But if I left back then, then this business would have fallen apart, and James had a daughter and an ailing mother to support on his own!  Lawna wouldn’t let me leave.  She made me promise to stick around long enough until the store could support itself, and her family would not have to undergo bankruptcy.  So, I did, because I owed James and Hannah that much.  I tried to end this partnership several times, but James would never hear of it.  Then he died, and Hannah needed someone to be there for her.  I was all she had left in this world!  I couldn’t leave!”

“Then why don’t you own the store now?” Justin asked accusingly.  Hannah’s father must have known something if he bought out his best friend.

Mark sighed as grief came over his face.  “My wife also died...and to pay the medical expenses and funeral costs, I either had to borrow against my share of the store or sell it.  James never hesitated in buying, but he kept me on as an employee.  It wasn’t because of Hannah and Lawna.  It was because James was a good man, and I am ashamed and proud to call him my friend.”

Justin let out a furious breath and stomped a few feet away.  He rounded on Mark one more time and said, “What are we supposed to do now?  If Lawna says anything to Hannah, this will devastate her.”

“I know,” Mark sighed.

Scanning the defeat in the older man’s face, Justin noticed more similarities between Mark and Hannah now.  She had the feminine version of Mark’s nose, and the same green-gold in her eyes, though Justin noticed that Mark’s were more gold than green.  They also seemed to hold themselves upright in a kindred stance.  There was a list of little things.  The way they both chewed on their lips, the way they both rolled their eyes, the way they both stood still with their left foot pointing slightly outward.  Mannerisms that anyone would have assumed came from spending so much time together.  Hell, Josie was biting down on her bottom lip now, too.  So, no one would have ever guessed that Hannah was Mark’s daughter.  He surely hadn’t until he realized there was a deep, dark secret to their past.

Justin shook his head.  “I won’t let anyone hurt her again,” he said aloud, not really pointing that sentence at anybody in particular.

Mark cocked his head to the side.  “And how do you suppose you’ll manage to do that?  Hannah said you’re leaving in a few weeks.  You won’t be able to protect her forever, despite how much you’re fighting your love for her.”

Justin sent him a scathing glare.  “Don’t begin to tell me how I feel about Hannah,” he warned darkly.

Mark glared back.  “Well, then you need to get your head out of your ass.  Lawna and me might have caused Hannah a lot of pain in the past, but it’ll be you who hurts her next.  And guess who will be here to hold her when you leave?  Me.  Kim.  And everybody else who has stuck with her when she needed us most.”  He pointed a finger at Justin’s chest.  “Take a good look at yourself, Justin Kirkland.  Because soon, you’ll be doing the exact same thing Lawna did...you’ll leave Hannah.  And if she cries when you go, don’t think I’ll hesitate to come after you.”

“You just try that, old man,” Justin warned.  Mark gave him a frown full of promise, and then turned and walked away.

Thirty minutes later, Justin pounded the heel of his hand against the steering wheel as he skidded to a stop outside his own parents’ home.  What was he going to do now?  Mark was right.  He couldn’t protect Hannah from any more anguish, but he couldn’t stand around and watch her mourn another loss in her life.  

God, he thought, pressing his palms into his aching eyeballs, I can’t fix this.  I’m not strong enough.  He had his own family to think of...his own daughter.  Josie had gone through too many changes in the recent past for him to uproot her life this way, all because of his obsession with a red-haired beauty.   

We should have never come here.  Hannah’s problems are not mine.

Yeah, and he kept telling himself that all day, while he robotically helped his dad around the farm and got ready for his date afterward.  He had his mom go get Josie because he didn’t want to face Mark again, not so soon, and not with Hannah next to him.  His only protection against blurting everything out was the fact that his daughter would be with them tonight.  But then those plans changed.  

Josie was chatting on her cell phone when she arrived at the farm, and then she asked if she could go skating with her friend, Jordan, from Choir, and if Jordan could spend the night with her.  Mary Alice agreed to the sleepover before Justin could say anything, so now he was stuck with a solitary date with Hannah.  How was he supposed to get through it, knowing what he knew, and not giving it away?  Any other time, he would have been thrilled to be alone with Hannah for a few hours, but not this time, not tonight.  He needed a buffer.  He should just cancel the date, but he knew he wouldn’t do that.  Hannah had been happy to go to dinner with him, so he couldn’t disappoint her.  Not when more disappointment was just around the corner.

But by the time he saw Hannah again, when he arrived at her house that night with Josie, her pleased, excited smile hit him with its fullest force, and his heart reeled with strange, commanding emotions.  What am I going to do?