Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

The investigative staff at Peachtree Free Press challenge Eve Best to come out of hiding and tell her viewers the real story. After all, why should she put the blinding spotlight on the secrets of others on live television when she’s so unwilling to bring her own to the light of day?

Eve looked up, and Dylan flinched. She could only imagine what her face must look like. Nicole reached out a tentative hand and laid it on Eve’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Nobody could be fine after reading something like this.”

Mitch took the paper from her and scanned the article. “It’s a bucket of lies, Eve. They’re just trying to sell more of their lousy rag.”

“You’ve never heard this rumor before?” Nicole asked.

“Never.” But the word rang hollow. Because it would explain that photo. And Adele Pierce-so obviously the paper’s so-called source-who had said Uncle Roy needed to clean up his mess. And Aunt Anne at dinner, behaving so strangely. What had she said? Something about the truth.

“I have to talk to my uncle,” Eve blurted. “Today. This minute.”

“You’re not driving anywhere after a shock like this.” Mitch picked her cropped linen jacket off the back of her chair and handed it to her. “I’ll take you.”

Her phone rang, and Dylan picked it up, waving the two of them toward the door. Then he called, “Eve. There’s a visitor in the lobby for you.”

“Not interested. We’ll go out the back door.”

“Yeah, you are. It’s your uncle.”

Eve stopped dead in the middle of the carpet. “My Uncle Roy? Is downstairs? Now?”

Dylan nodded.

She resisted the urge to ask Dylan why he wasn’t already on his way to fetch him. “Escort him in here, please, Dylan. And find us some brandy or something. Don’t look at me like that-this is a crisis. Raid Dan’s office-I know he’s got liquor in his sideboard.”

Mitch backed toward the door. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy. This is a family matter.”

She grabbed his jacket. “Please don’t. I need you. Please.”

For a moment, she thought she’d lose him-that the shaken self-confidence he’d allowed to swamp him earlier would come back and separate them just when she needed him more than ever before. But then a new expression filled his eyes, and he straightened his shoulders.

“You do?”

“Yes.” She burrowed into his arms and felt like shouting hallelujah as they went around her body, strong and sure. “Now. Later. Forever. Just stay.”

And that’s how her Uncle Roy found them when Dylan ushered him in a moment later. Dylan put a brand-new bottle of Courvoisier and three ceramic coffee mugs from the kitchen on her low table and shut the door behind him.

Roy Best looked as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. He stood uneasily, searching Eve’s face, no doubt for some clue as to her feelings.

She could have helped him out if she’d only known herself what those were. To give herself a moment to find her equilibrium, Eve poured a shot for all of them, then sat next to her uncle on the short couch. Roy was neatly put together in an expensive suit and sober tie, but his face…he looked as though he were in shock.

Maybe he was. Even though Mitch stood behind her, Roy didn’t seem to be aware there was anyone but Eve in the room.

“You must hate me,” he said at last, swirling the brandy in the mug but not sipping it. She supposed they were committing some kind of brandy sin by not drinking it out of snifters, but they had to work with what they were given.

“Of course not,” she assured him softly. “I only saw the paper just now, but ever since I went to Mirabel on the weekend, I’ve seen and heard things that have puzzled me. The paper has one slant that would explain them. I’d love to hear yours, if you want to tell me.”

He gave up on the drink and put it on the table. “That’s just it. It isn’t slanted. Except for the nasty tone of it, the paper has its essentials correct. I’m your biological father.”

Luke, I am your father, she heard James Earl Jones say in her head. You look like Evalyne, Adele said, her voice threading over it. So does my niece. She’s fourteen, her own voice said, adding to the mix. She wasn’t blond, like both Loreen and her da-Gibson. She was a green-eyed brunette. Like Evalyne. Like Roy.

“Do Karen and Emily know?” she rasped, her throat dry. “And Aunt Anne?” She took a gulp of the brandy, and it burned all the way down.

“Anne has always known. Do you think I would keep something like that from her? When you were eleven, and fixing to come out here for Christmas a few weeks before the accident, she wanted us to tell you then. Your mom agreed, but your dad was dead against it.”

“They had a fight in the car,” Eve said, remembering. “They went out somewhere, and even before they left, they were fighting. That was the night they went off the road. Because they were fighting about me.” Her voice dropped as she spiraled down the tunnel of time to a place she thought she’d blocked out. The flashing lights outside the house. Nana running to stop the policeman on the sidewalk. The funeral, with two closed caskets that she to this day had a difficult time believing contained her parents’ bodies. They’d never let her see them. It wasn’t fitting, Nana had insisted.

Maybe not, but she’d never been able to say goodbye, either. Hadn’t been able to control the situation. Hadn’t been able to give vent to the depths of emotion she’d been feeling. Going deep into emotion hurt too much. She couldn’t bear it then.

Things have changed now, haven’t they? Because of Mitch.

“We can’t know that,” Roy said heavily. “Believe me, I’ve had my share of regrets over this. But it seemed kinder to let things go on as they were. The kids think of you as their cousin, not their half sister. That will change now, of course. And I’ll be asking their forgiveness, too.”

“I have close family.” She marveled that she was only now realizing it. “If you want to acknowledge that.”

His face crumpled. “Acknowledge? I’m begging your forgiveness, Eve. For being such a coward. For letting Gibson clean up my mistake. For what it’s worth, he adored your mother, even while Loreen and I were dating. I think he would have done what he did a hundred times rather than let her face those uptight society biddies who would have looked down their noses at her.”

“She loved him, too,” Eve said softly. “It was the right thing to do, their getting married. I had a great childhood. And maybe it prepared me for what I do for a living now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Anne will be glad, too. She’s been absolutely beside herself, hardly knowing whether to blame me or comfort me. Adele called, you know. That’s why I got here so early. I don’t read that particular paper, so when she told me what that reporter had written, I broke a couple of speed limits getting over here.”

“I have a few things I’d like to say to that woman,” Eve said grimly.

“Don’t be too hard on her. She was absolutely right. She’s been nagging me for thirty years, just the way she used to nag us to brush our teeth and quit talking after she turned out the lights.”

“It was none of her business.”

“Maybe not, but you’d have a hard time telling her that. It’s the way families are around here. My mom-your grandmother-had to go out to work, you know. She couldn’t be home much for us, so Adele stepped in to help. She became a kind of second mother. A confidante, in many ways. Even for Loreen.”

“I’m sure Grandmother did what she had to, to keep body and soul together.” She couldn’t blame a woman for that.