Critical Praise for Catherine Palmer

“Catherine Palmer is the diva of heartbreak fiction!”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Palmer has created some interesting characters…Brock’s faith journey is realistic and will touch readers.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on Love’s Haven

“Believable characters tug at heartstrings, and God’s power to change hearts and lives is beautifully depicted.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on That Christmas Feeling

“Fans of…the award-winning Palmer will enjoy this light and tightly written romance.”

—Library Journal on Victorian Rose

“A powerful mix of lightness and intensity, this novel demonstrates a beautiful message of Christian love. Expertly drawn characters and Ms. Palmer’s gifted insight into the human heart make this one of the best inspirational and historical romances of the year.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on Prairie Fire

“Palmer certainly doesn’t preach, yet spiritual truths come part and parcel with the story. Balancing her characters’ flood of negative emotions with their spiritual reawakening is difficult, but Palmer succeeds admirably. Fans of Dee Henderson’s fast-paced Christian thrillers will find Palmer’s novel just as riveting.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Dangerous Silence

Leaves of Hope
Catherine Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Tim Palmer, whose humble service to

“the least of these” bears daily witness that any

man who is in Christ is a new creation.

Acknowledgments

A book’s roots run deep. This story’s legacy goes all the way back to the tea and coffee fields of my childhood in Kenya. To Carol Lloyd, whose friendship saved my mother and brought intense joy to my young life. To her husband, Thomas Lloyd, manager of Tinderet tea estate, a man whose life demonstrates that hard, honest work can break down every barrier. To Richard Wilson, who brought me more happiness than he will ever know. And to his family, whose life in Kenya helped spark the very essence of my imagination.

While the oldest and deepest roots hold a plant in place, the newer ones provide the nourishment that gives it life. For this book’s existence, I thank my husband, Tim, who patiently lived the story of Jan and Beth with me and who edited every word of the manuscript before it left my hands. I am so grateful to my Steeple Hill editor, Joan Marlow Golan, who listened to my heart and gave me freedom to stretch my wings in writing the story of two generations bound by a message in a teapot. My gratitude also to Karen Solem, my agent, a woman who always keeps me pressing forward in the Christian race. May God richly bless all of you!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Do you think Beth should have opened the cardboard box with her name on it? Why or why not? Is it ever all right to disobey a parent’s wishes?

2. Why do you think Jan kept the tea set Thomas Wood had given her? Why do you think she put the note inside it? Do you believe she told Beth the truth about her reasons for holding on to the gift from Thomas?

3. What do you think of Jan’s relationship with John Lowell? Was she right to have married him? Do you believe she really loved him? Did he really love her? What kind of man do you think he was—and why did he behave as he did? How does Beth feel toward John before and after the discovery of the teapot?

4. Why is Jan so upset to discover that her hair color has been discontinued? What does the dye symbolize to her? How do Jan’s feelings about her age change through the story? Why?

5. Jan has always painted roses. Why was she so determined to put her daughter into a pink bedroom? Why are the sayings on the walls and paintings of the roses so important to Jan? Why does she suddenly start painting children?

6. What do you think of Beth’s attitude and behavior toward her mother? Should she have confronted Jan about her discovery of the note? When she was dealing with the news about her birth father, did her life give evidence of her faith in Christ? She regularly talks about running a race. What does she mean by that?

7. How are Jan and Beth different? Are they alike in any way? How have they affected and changed each other through the years?

8. What part does Jim Blevins play in Jan’s life? Do you think she treats him well? How does Jim play a role in Beth’s life? What do you suppose will happen to Jim?

9. Miles Wilson describes himself as “boorish.” What sort of man is he when Beth meets him? Why does she have such a powerful impact upon him? Why is Malcolm Wilson important in his brother’s life? What kind of man is Miles at the end of the book?

10. Do you believe Jan and Miles were right when they decided their new faith in Christ should bear physical evidence of change? Did they really need to go all the way to India to prove it? What did Jan and Miles mean when they discussed that Beth seemed to “glow”? Paul said that any person who gives his or her life to Christ becomes a new creation. Do you believe that new life in Christ always brings about a dramatic change? How did Beth, Jan, Miles and Thomas live out their faith?

To ask questions or for further information,

please visit the author’s Web site:

www.catherinepalmer.com

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter One

Lake Palestine, Texas

Being home again felt better than she had expected. With her mother living in a new house by the lake and her father gone, Beth Lowell had feared things might seem strange. But there in the pink armchair sat her mom reading a magazine. By the door stood the familiar brass coatrack. On the table sat a bouquet of fresh roses, as always. As much as she wished her mother would wake up and do something exciting with her life, Beth couldn’t deny the pleasure in the familiar aroma of Jan Lowell’s warm cherry cobbler. The taste of her famous chicken salad. The tang of fresh, homemade lemonade.

“Do you realize how many times your phone has tweedled, sweetie?” Jan lifted her head from the magazine. “I bet you’ve had fifteen calls since you got here this afternoon.”

“Is that bothering you?” Beth asked as she set the phone beside her on the old beige sofa.

“It does make conversation difficult. I haven’t seen you in almost a year, but we can hardly finish a sentence. Before this last call, you were telling me about your boss.”

“I don’t want to talk about Joe anymore.” Beth crossed her legs and rubbed her toes, determined to avoid the subject of the man she had been dating for two months. “He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t understand my job. They bought us out because they knew they needed us, but Joe hasn’t found time to learn what we do.”

Her mom’s eyebrows lifted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Beth. Who’s they, and who’s us? And what do you really do?”

“My division of the company used to be an independent consulting firm. We assisted various corporations with international transitions. Last year, Global Relocation Services acquired the firm and moved us to New York. Now we help their clients.”

As Jan shook her head in confusion, Beth wondered why her mother suddenly looked so old. Why did she wear a faded pink chenille bathrobe and that ancient flannel nightgown? And why did she still have those awful fake-fur slippers she’d gotten for Christmas a jillion years ago?

“What is an international transition, honey?” Jan asked. “I’m sorry, but I can’t picture what that means.”

She adjusted herself in the chair, Beth noticed, as though her back were hurting. Could she have osteoporosis at age forty-five?

“You’re the English teacher, Mom,” Beth reminded her. “International refers to the world. Transition means moving and changing. I help people move around the world. Industry executives. Diplomats. Oil field managers.”

“You pack boxes for them?” Jan glanced at the stacks of cartons still lining the edge of her living room. Though she had been living at the lake for more than a month now, she had yet to sort through all her possessions. The guest room where Beth would sleep was a maze of lamps, side tables, artificial flower arrangements and boxes.

“The moving company takes care of people’s furniture and possessions—the packing and unpacking,” Beth explained. “My division handles the rest.”

“What else is there?”

“Everything. Families are uprooting their lives and settling into a new community. That’s where I come in.”

Jan flipped a page in her magazine without looking down at it. “Like helping them find a good school?”

“That and a hundred other things. For example, I just spent three months working with the family of a plastics company executive moving from Chicago to Colombia.”

“Colombia? South America? Where they have the drugs and cartels and kidnappings? You didn’t go down there, did you?”

“Sure, I went. This family—Dad, Mom and three children—were moving to the city of Cali. I interviewed each person to learn what they needed in order to be happy. Then I went to work. I helped them find a great house—five bedrooms, swimming pool, wonderful yard. There’s a wall with Spanish lace on top—that’s broken glass and barbed wire. And I set them up with a reputable security company, so they’ve got armed guards and watchdogs 24/7.”

“How horrible!”

“No, it’s great. It’s safe, too—that’s the main thing. Their car has an armed chauffeur, and the house features a state-of-the-art alarm system. I found the kids an international school where classes are taught in English. Fully accredited—kindergarten through twelfth grade. Ninety-five percent of the students go on to university, most of them in the United States.”

“Well, that’s impressive. But what a scary place to live. Armed guards?”

Beth shrugged. “Families like that are prey for kidnappers. They’re wealthy, they’re American and they work for Fortune 500 companies. Unfortunately, Colombia has a number of guerrilla organizations. Ransom money helps pay for their activities. So does drug money.”

“Beth, what kind of parents would move their children to such a place? It’s so risky, so irresponsible! And how could you go there without telling me? If I’d known, I would have been frantic!”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I loved every minute of it, and I was perfectly safe. Cali is an enchanting city—flowers, a perfect climate, wonderful people.”

“Except for the drug lords and guerrillas,” Jan said drily.

“What country doesn’t have a criminal element?” Beth countered, trying to squelch her resentment that her mother was putting her on the defensive about her work…her life. “The family was thrilled with my work. Before the move, our transition team briefed them on what to expect—not just the change in lifestyle but the emotional impact of the move. I heard from the mother the other day. They’re enjoying their new life, the kids are excited about school and everyone is taking Spanish classes.”

Jan leaned back and set her magazine on the table. “I don’t know how you became this person, Beth,” she said softly. “You grew up in Tyler.”

“Everyone grows up somewhere. I’ve always wanted to travel, Mom. You make it sound like a bad thing.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Not really. And the adventure is more than worth the risk. I’m going to Botswana in a couple of weeks!”

“Africa? Oh, my.”

“Are you really worried, Mom? Or is it that you don’t like change, so you can’t believe someone else would?”

“Probably a little of both. Frankly, even hearing about it wears me out. I wouldn’t know where to begin doing what you do. And those poor wives. If my husband had moved me around like that…”

She paused, her eyes drifting to the corner of the living room as if she were looking at something far away. Then she shook herself and focused on her daughter again. “I’d be scared to death, and I would probably hate it. I’m glad you’re happy, though, honey. That’s all I want for you.”

Beth rearranged herself on the couch. “I wish you’d come to New York for a visit, Mom. I’d show you my apartment, my job…my life. We could go to some of my favorite restaurants. And see a play. When was the last time you saw a Broadway production?”

“I’ve never been to New York.” Jan admitted.

“Mom, that’s awful! You’ve never been to a Broadway show? You were an English major. You directed plays at John Tyler High School for the past twenty years. Didn’t you have a chance to go when you were young—on a band trip or during college?”

“New York City is a long way from Tyler. Besides, I’ve never wanted to leave Texas. I’m sorry to disappoint you, honey, but I like my quiet life out here by the lake.”

Beth gazed out the window at the mown green lawn, the strip of gray road, the yard across the street and the lake beyond. The sunset reflecting on the water flashed periwinkle and pink sparkles as snatches of foamy white scattered across the surface. Birds wheeled and screeched overhead—seagulls and pelicans—dipping to pluck fish from the water.

Jan followed her daughter’s gaze. “I don’t know how those seagulls dare to wander so far from the ocean.”

“Maybe they’re the adventurous ones.”

“Or lost.” Her mother returned her focus to Beth. “You can come to the lake any time you want. I’ll always be happy for a visit.”

“Is that the only way I can have you in my life? You and Dad helped me become who I am. I want you to know me now, Mom…as an adult.”

“I do know you, sweetie,” Jan said. “Better than you think. I’m just not one to go places—I never have been. Now I’m forty-five and a widow and an empty-nester, and my life isn’t going to change drastically. It’s like the quote I love so much, remember? ‘That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that not it? It is.’ I painted it on the wall of my screened porch. I used brown to contrast with the white clapboard. It’s the theme for my new life here at the lake.”

Beth reflected a moment. “Mom, that’s the theme you’ve always had. Que sera sera. What will be, will be. Or Shakespeare’s ‘I scorn to change my state with kings.’”

“Sonnet Twenty-Nine,” her mother clarified. “‘For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.’ It’s better when you say the whole thing. You know I taught English for twenty years, Beth. These quotes crop up in conversation now and then.”

“But they’re always the same, Mom, like memos to yourself—reminding you to shrug off any possibility of change.” Beth’s eyes widened and she sat up. “I just thought of another one. ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can—’”

“‘And the wisdom to know the difference,’” they finished together.

“What’s wrong with that?” Jan asked. “Your daddy grew up in a houseful of reformed alcoholics, and they lived by that saying.”

“They weren’t reformed alcoholics when Dad was growing up.” Beth tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Dad was the only stable one of the whole bunch. I’m surprised they didn’t all fall to pieces after he died.”

“I’m surprised none of us did.” Jan swallowed, and looked down.

Beth felt again the huge hole her father’s death had left in his family’s world. Two years had gone by, but it seemed like yesterday. And forever.

“The point I’m making, Mom,” she continued gently, “is that you took a big step—retiring from your teaching job, selling the house you and Dad lived in your whole married life, leaving good ol’ Tyler, Texas, and moving to a new house fifteen miles away. But then you painted the same old motto on your porch.”

Jan’s blue eyes narrowed. “Young lady, ‘what is, is.’ I will accept it and try to be happy.”

“So, you’re just going to roll up like a little pill bug and bury your head?”

“Of course not! I have plans. Things I’m doing. But I won’t spend my life longing for what was. Or wishing for what might have been. It’s called acceptance.”

“It’s called boring.”

“Well, that’s your opinion.”

Beth’s heart grew softer as she heard the pain in her mother’s voice. “When I heard you were moving, I was thrilled. I thought, now. Now, she’ll do something with herself. You taught school to earn a living, but inside, you had art, poetry, imagination bubbling up and seeping out. I thought I might come to the lake and find a bohemian mom with candles burning and red velvet couches and books of poetry lying around. But you have another tidy little house with the same curtains, beige furniture and throw rugs, just like in Tyler. You’re still making chicken salad sandwiches and lemonade. And you’ve painted a saying that means ‘Accept life and do nothing different.’”

“First of all, I loved teaching,” Jan told her daughter. “It was never just a job. Second…well, I am doing things differently.

My art, for example.”

“Watercolors?”

“Pastel chalks, as a matter of fact.” Jan lifted her chin as though she had just reported recently climbing Mount Everest. “So you see? It’s not the same. I took a class years ago. A woman taught us how to create portraits of Native Americans.”

“You’re painting Native Americans?”

“Of course not. What would I know about Native Americans? But one day I got out the old pastels, and I’ve been experimenting. I’m trying new things.”

“It doesn’t count if you’re still doing roses, Mom.”

“I’m painting people.”

“People!” Beth sat up straight. “Let me see!”

“Absolutely not. I’m still learning. Besides, all my people still look like Native Americans. Pastels aren’t as easy as watercolors, where you can blend until you get the exact tone before you put brush to paper. With chalk, it’s all about how you use your hands. Look at my fingertips. The prints are worn off from rubbing the paper. I could commit a crime, and they’d never catch me.”

Beth laughed. “You’ve never done anything wrong, Mom.” Jan gave a demure smile. “So, now you know what’s new with me…tell me more about you. Are you seeing anyone?”

Beth groaned. “You are way too predictable.”

“Well?”

“Are you?”

“Me?”

“You’re allowed to date, you know. Bob, Bill and I talked over the idea, and we’re agreed. We think you should start going out. Maybe even marry again.”

“So my children are discussing me behind my back,” Jan said. “Well, save yourselves the trouble. I’m not interested in dating—or remarrying—ever. It hasn’t been long since your father died, and that was very traumatic. Besides, look at me. I’ve spread out in all the wrong places. I’m sagging and drooping and wrinkled up like one of those Chinese dogs. But let’s talk about you. Have you met any nice men in New York?”

“Look, Mom, I know losing Dad was devastating, but he died two years ago, and was sick for three years before that, so it’s not as if you haven’t had time to work through your feelings. And why do you make yourself sound like a bag lady? You’re pretty, Mom.”

“I know what’s under this bathrobe. Believe me, there’s no chance I’m ever going to marry again, so you can put that notion right out of your head.”

“If marrying is such a bad idea, why are you always pushing me to connect with some altar-bound guy?”

“Well, for pity’s sake, Beth, you’re beautiful and smart, and you have your whole life in front of you. Don’t you want to build a family? Buy a home instead of living in that cramped apartment? And what about children? What about love?”

“You tell me.”

“There’s nothing more wonderful than a happy marriage. It’s what I want for all my children.”

“Then why won’t you marry again?”

“Beth, stop! I’ve been there, done that, okay? Look at who’s available for me to choose from, anyway? The single men my age will have failed marriages or be old, lonely widowers with too many needs or have resentful children. Even if I did find some never-before-married man my age, what sort of person could he be?”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Everyone has baggage, Mom. None of the men I meet are pristine young innocents.”

“Have you been going to church?”

“Of course. I’ve met some decent men—but everyone has baggage.”

“You don’t have any baggage. You grew up in a two-parent home in Tyler, Texas, with a nice church and an active social life. You got a good education, and now you have an interesting job.”

“I’m practically perfect in every way, like Mary Poppins?” Beth grinned. “Yeah, you and Dad did a fine job raising me, Mom. I’m just not in a hurry to marry. I have other things to do before I settle down. And I want you to come to New York and visit me.”

Jan reached over and fiddled with the magazine. “I might,” she said finally. “I have time now, and your dad left me in good financial shape. So I suppose I could.”

“How about this summer?”

“Oh, no, I’m still settling in here in Lake Palestine. I have a lot to do.”

“I’ll help you unpack. I’m here for three days. I bet we can take care of it all before I leave.”

“No.” Her voice growing serious, Jan rose from her chair. “Don’t touch anything, Beth. Leave those boxes in the guest room exactly as they are. I’m the only one who knows where things should go. Seriously. Hands off.”

Beth studied her mom, who looked shorter and tinier now than ever. Despite her auburn hair and pert blue eyes, Jan showed her years. Did she want to shrivel up and fade away as her husband had done? Disease had robbed him of all movement, and then his breath and finally his life.

Before the tears could start, Beth stood. “Good night, Mom,” she whispered as she folded her mother in her arms. “I love you.”

In the guest room, Beth rooted through her suitcase. She had grown so accustomed to living out of it that she hardly had to search for things. Underwear on the left. Toiletries on the right. Casual clothes at the bottom. Business attire near the top. She bought knits that needed no ironing, and lingerie she could wash at night and wear by morning. Her mother had no idea of any of this.

As she tugged her T-shirt over her head, Beth focused on a plaque Jan had painted long ago. It had always hung in the spare room at their house in Tyler. “Welcome, Friend,” she had painted in delicate, curling script—black ink on a pale purple background. And then beneath it she printed words from a William Cowper poem:

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

Beth wondered if this was truly what her mother desired most. Shutters fastened, curtains drawn, cups of hot tea and a quiet life in which nothing ever changed.

She mused on their evening together. While talking of New York and her job, Beth had felt her mother’s scrutiny. It was as if Jan were trying to read her offspring, define her, decipher this odd creature in her living room. If only she could label her daughter in the same way she tagged other things, the child would make sense at last.

In fact, now that Beth thought of it, her mother had branded her. Near the window in her cotton-candy pink bedroom, Jan had hung this verse:

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice, and everything nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.

Sugar and spice? Hardly. Now, as she opened the closet door to toss in her travel bag, Beth wondered where the framed sayings and poems had ended up. Were they in one of the boxes stacked around the guest room? Or had her mother thrown them into the trash on moving day?

Of course, the inscription painted in bright pink letters over the bed in Beth’s room would have been left behind. She recalled gazing at it for hours, wondering if it were true. “Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,” read the words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Queen rose. Beth had pondered the elaborate calligraphy as she lay in her pink bedroom with its reproduction white French Provincial furniture, its flowered spread and curtains and its pale pink carpet. She had imagined the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden, a fourteen-acre park with five hundred varieties of roses among its forty thousand bushes. She had pictured a girl’s face inside each rose…her friends, models in the Sears catalog, actresses on television. In the center of the park grew one large bush with a single deep red blossom…the queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. And whose face did Beth see when she peered among the petals of that marvelous flower?

Her mother’s.

Janice Amelia Calhoun Lowell.

In her heart, Beth knew she herself was no rose. She inhabited the pink room, but it had never belonged to her. She didn’t match the soft hues, fragile blossoms and sweet poetry. An olive-skinned tomboy, she ran around the neighborhood with scuffed sneakers, scabby knees, tattered shorts and skinny arms. Twigs of hair stuck out in every direction from her long brown braids. She climbed trees and built forts. She was a pirate king, a mermaid ruling an undersea city, a soldier slogging through the jungle, a spy on a secret mission. She hated pink.

“I don’t know how you became this person,” her mother had mused aloud. But had Beth changed so much?

As she set out her toiletries and Bible, she tucked a length of hair behind her ear. Scripture taught that change was not only possible but essential. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul had written that a Christian must become a new person in Christ. A different creature.

This was troublesome for a girl who had given her life to Jesus at a church revival when she was eight years old. How much sin could a child that age have committed? How much change could one expect? Yet, Beth sensed that because of Christ, she was changing all the time—renewing, working out her salvation, striving toward righteousness.

The more she dug into Scripture, the odder and less normal she became. These days, she felt transparent and single-minded and deep and narrow and open and loving and intolerant and all kinds of contradictory things. In the same way that she had failed to blend into her pink bedroom as a child, she now failed to identify with most of her coworkers and friends. She was metamorphosing into an alien, someone not even her own mother recognized.

With a sigh, Beth pressed a dab of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, picked up her cleanser and comb, and cast a last look at the Bible on the bed. Tired and a little cranky from trying to communicate with her mom, she considered skipping her daily Scripture reading. But she knew she wouldn’t. The ritual had come to mean too much.

As she brushed her teeth in the guest bathroom, Beth could hear her mother in the kitchen—putting away dishes, opening and closing the refrigerator, tucking place mats back in their drawer. Touching everything and setting little bits of herself here and there, shaping and molding her small, well-ordered world.

Did her mother feel she had failed? Skinny, dark-haired Beth, Jan’s only daughter, hadn’t grown up to become the queen rose. She certainly wasn’t sugar and spice and everything nice. Beth had traveled away from her family and had kept on going, until she was someone else entirely.

As she headed back into the bedroom, Beth recalled her mother’s insistence that she was doing different things now—using pastels to create portraits. As though that were a radical change from her watercolor bouquets.

Perhaps such an alteration was more fundamental than Beth supposed. Curious about her mother’s art, she peeked behind the coats and sweaters in the closet. What sort of people could Jan Lowell be sketching? Rose-cheeked children? Ladies in pink flowered gowns? The high school students she had taught so many years? All of them looking vaguely like Native Americans…

Smiling at the thought, Beth knelt and pushed aside a cardboard box in search of an artist’s pad or a hidden portfolio. The new sketches were probably in her mom’s bedroom, stashed away until she deemed them ready for presentation. In the past, Jan always held a little ceremony, complete with chocolate cake and punch at which she debuted her latest rose paintings. Her children chose their favorite, and their mother framed it—hanging the selected piece in a special place beside the front door.

As Beth began to uncurl from the floor, she spotted a black-marker notation on the cardboard box she had pushed aside in the closet. “For Beth,” it read. The carton wasn’t large, and she wondered what could be inside it. Old school papers or childhood treasures? Perhaps a collection of mementos from Beth’s grandparents or sweet old Nanny, the children’s favorite babysitter?

Beth ran her hand over the tape that sealed the carton. Odd that this box had been so well packed while the others in the room were simply folded in on themselves. She shouldn’t open it. Her mother had told her not to touch anything in the room. Hands off. But this carton was clearly meant to be Beth’s. “For Beth,” it announced in bold black ink.

Glancing at the door, she noted that the house had fallen silent. Her mom might be upset with her for opening a box so carefully sealed, but maybe their talking about the items would draw them closer together. It would be interesting to see what bits and pieces had been saved from the big house, the old life in Tyler, where school and friends and family had been all Beth knew of the world.

As she popped the tape and the carton’s flaps sprang up, Beth saw she had guessed correctly. Relics of the past. Her baby blanket—a soft knit in shades of white and pink—lay on top. A tag fluttering from one corner read, “Crocheted for Beth Lowell by her mother, Jan.” Next she lifted her red velvet Christmas dress with its row of tiny holly leaves across the hem. Her mother had printed on the tag, “Beth’s church dress when she was three years old.” Farther down, she unearthed small white shoes, worn and battered, her first pair. A sealed envelope under the shoes had been printed in her mother’s handwriting, “A curl from Beth’s first haircut.”

Continuing to sift through the box, Beth found more carefully packed mementos. Jan Lowell’s handwritten tags provided each item’s history. How sweet that her mother had saved these things…cherished and gently tended, like the daughter who once had worn them. Misty-eyed, Beth ran her fingers over a lumpy mass of bubble wrap taped around some bulky object. As she lifted the keepsake from the bottom of the box, she saw it had no label.

Sniffling, Beth began to peel away the plastic wrap. She had the best mother in the world. Chocolate-chip cookies and cold milk after school, freshly ironed dresses for church, a new lunch box every year and paintings of roses beside the front door. Unlike many of her friends, Beth had been held in her daddy’s arms and fed with her mother’s warm love and nourished by all the security, peace and hope her parents had been able to provide. How truly blessed she was.

As the bubble wrap crackled and fell open, Beth smiled at the sight of still more roses. A small sugar bowl, pale ivory with tiny pink, blue and yellow blossoms scattered across it, lay nestled in the plastic. How beautiful and delicate it was. She set aside the sugar bowl and discovered the plastic wrap held two more items. She lifted a creamer rimmed in gold, and then a teapot, plump with a curved spout that surely would never spill a drop.

Who had these belonged to? Beth couldn’t recall ever seeing them. Brushing her damp cheek, she turned over the sugar bowl and read the name of the manufacturer. Grimwade, Royal Winton. How fragile and perfect it was. At last, she cradled the teapot in her lap and peeked under its lid. A thrill ran up her spine as she spied a folded piece of paper lying at the bottom. She opened the note and read her mother’s inscription.

“Beth, this tea set was given to me by your birth father, Thomas Wood. He was a good man.”

The words sat on the page, unmoving, clearly legible, yet indecipherable. “Your birth father.” What did that mean? Beth read the note again. “Your birth father, Thomas Wood.” That wasn’t right. Her father was John Lowell, history professor at Tyler Junior College, barbecue king, TV football addict, Halloween treat dispenser, Easter egg hider and picture of health until he was stricken at fifty by Lou Gehrig’s disease and died at fifty-three.

Beth picked up the teapot and studied it. Whose was this thing? Not hers. She didn’t have a birth father. She had a father. This “Beth” on the label must be another girl. A different person entirely.

Confusion filled her as she glanced at the items scattered on the floor. These had been hers. The Christmas dress. The lock of hair. But not this tea set. Not this birth father. Not this Thomas Wood.

But the china had been packed and put away in Beth’s box. The note inside began with her name. “Beth…this tea set…your birth father…Thomas Wood…a good man…”

Impossible. No way.

Shaking, Beth got to her feet and gathered up the teapot along with the bubble wrap and the note. This would make sense in a minute. Things would fall into place. The world would come back together.

As Beth stepped out into the living room, the lid clinked against the teapot. “Mom?” she called out. “Mother, where are you?”

Chapter Two

Jan pushed her toes down to the very end of the bed and wiggled them inside her socks. No matter what time of year, her feet were always cold. Her husband had gotten used to it after a while. Sometimes in the night John would roll over, gather her in his arms and let her tuck her feet between his. Even now, two years after his death, she could recall the warmth of his feet seeping through her socks and between her toes. Human warmth. Male warmth. A heating pad or an electric blanket could never replicate that. How she missed him.

Moving to the lake had been a good idea, Jan confirmed to herself once again. She pulled the quilt up to her neck and listened to the utter silence outside her bedroom window. A small neighborhood surrounded her own little cottage, but at this time of night no one stirred. The couple next to her had retired years before. Another widow—in her nineties—lived catty-corner across the street. Few of the homes belonged to permanent residents. Most people came and went on weekends. RVs pulled into driveways. Boats and Jet Skis zipped across the water. Outdoor grills scented the air with barbecue and charcoal. Firecrackers popped, and dogs howled. But by Sunday night, the weekenders had gone away, and the lake resumed its peaceful repose.

Though she hated to admit it, Jan knew she would feel relief when her daughter loaded the rental car and sped away, too. After a sudden change of plans gave her a free weekend, Beth had arrived at the lake house unannounced. Her shoulder-length dark hair slightly mussed from leaning back against an airplane seat, she wore a tight black top, a black skirt that clung to her nonexistent hips and a black jacket. To Jan, none of the fabrics matched, but Beth never noticed details like that. Leather, denim and silk—well, they’re all black, Beth would argue. Despite her annoyance at her mother’s predictability, Beth hadn’t changed much, either. She had always been difficult…so odd and indecipherable.

Her younger brothers were teddy bears—freckled and floppy replicas of their pudgy, amiable father. They laughed, wrestled, accidentally knocked things over, told jokes and rolled along with good-natured ease. Bobby had clowned his way through school and almost succeeded in goofing off his entire college career. Now he held a job with a computer company in Houston, but Jan had little doubt that he was still making everyone around him laugh. Billy had been so easygoing, happy to just hang around his big brother and play with his friends and do his chores. He had just graduated from Texas A&M and was back in Tyler working for one of the rose nurseries.

But as a child, Beth had been a dark-eyed, wiry loner—climbing rock piles or hiding in treetops, building forts out of cardboard boxes, staring at bugs and reading until dawn. She rarely giggled, hated cuddling and deplored the girly aura her mother had tried so hard to create around her. A pink bedroom. A pretty velvet Christmas dress. Dolls. Ribbons. Beth preferred blue jeans, sneakers and a compass or a pair of binoculars.

Off to see the world! That was Beth’s motto—then and now. Jan sighed and rolled over. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her daughter. Nor was she disappointed in the way Beth had turned out. Just the opposite. But why wouldn’t Beth let her come closer? Why was she always pushing away from the slightest touch or snapping out some witty retort? If only they could be friends now that Beth was grown.

“Come to New York,” her daughter had begged. The very thought of it made Jan queasy. A huge city, sidewalks jammed with people, taxi drivers yelling and honking. And terrorists. You could never forget about that possibility.

No, Jan would much prefer to stay here by the lake and work on the portraits she had started. She liked puttering. She enjoyed strolling. Solitude pleased her.

Let Beth and the boys come here. They could watch their mother slide gently into old age, getting creakier and maybe even crankier with time. She would bake her famous cobbler for the neighbors. Paint roses on her walls. Plant petunias, marigolds and roses in her front yard. Maybe she would even stop coloring her hair that familiar auburn shade. What an unexpected thought. Gray at last.

Beth had described her mother as a pill bug. But that wasn’t right. Jan didn’t intend to roll up and hide her head from the world. She simply didn’t need people as much now. She didn’t have to mingle with professors’ spouses or attend PTA meetings or be in the Lady Lions or even go to church. None of that was required.

In fact, Jan hadn’t been to church once in the weeks since she’d moved to the lake. And so what? Who would notice if she never showed up at a worship service? She didn’t need sermons to know what she believed, and she certainly had no desire to walk into a Sunday school room full of strangers. If some church wanted her to be a member, well, let them come find her. God knew where she was, and that was all she cared about.

Turning over again, Jan debated what to do with her daughter for two more days. It wasn’t like Lake Palestine was a dream destination for a single, twenty-five-year-old female. Formed by damming the Neches River, the lake covered 25,000 acres and dropped to fifty-eight feet deep in places. It was a fisher-man’s paradise. Largemouth bass, white and striped bass, channel and blue catfish, crappie and sunfish drew people all year long. The white bass had just completed their spring run up the Neches River and Kickapoo Creek. But Jan didn’t own a boat, and she wasn’t fond of fishing. She and John had often taken their children to the smaller lakes around Tyler. Jan had preferred to sit on the dock and read a book or prepare the picnic lunch while her family fished and swam.

That was what Beth just didn’t understand about her. Jan liked being sedentary. She didn’t want to see the world. Or even New York. The thought of flying to Botswana made her shudder. And as for that poor wife whose husband had dragged her and their children to Colombia to live inside a fortress with armed guards outside—

“Mom?” Beth’s voice down the hall sounded troubled. Instantly Jan threw back the quilt. What was it? A bad dream? A spider?

“Mother, where are you?”

“I’m coming!” Jan stepped into her slippers and started across the room. “Beth, what is it, honey?”

The door swung open, and there stood her daughter holding Thomas Wood’s teapot.

“What is this?” Beth demanded. She could hardly hold back tears. If her mom said the wrong thing…if this was what it seemed…if the note had been true…

“Where did you find that?”

“What is it, Mother?”

“Well, it’s a teapot, of course.” Her mother reached for it. “Give me that, Beth. Where did you get it?”

“You’d better tell me what it is right now, Mother. And don’t even think about taking it away!”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady.”

“Mother, where did this teapot come from?” Beth let out a breath, tried to calm herself. “Tell me whose it is.”

Jan crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. “I’m going to put on my robe,” she announced. “And you had better adjust your attitude by the time I’m done.”

“Adjust my attitude? What is this, Mom? Do you think I’m fifteen?” Beth followed her mother toward the rocking chair where the robe lay. “I found this teapot and the note inside it. And I want to know what it means.”

Jan pursed her lips as she pushed her arms into the pink chenille robe, folded the edges over each other and tied the belt into a half-bow at her waist. She walked to the closet, opened the door a hair and shut it again. Then she switched on the lamp beside her bed and adjusted the shade.

“Mother!” Beth stepped to her side and took hold of her arm. “You can’t fidget your way out of this. You can’t deny it. Now sit down and tell me what is going on here. Why was this teapot in my box? What does this note mean? And who is Thomas Wood?”

“Nothing and nobody,” Jan said, dropping onto the edge of her bed. “That’s all you need to know. Nothing and nobody.”

“That’s not true! You wrote this. What does it mean—‘your birth father’?”

“Where did you find that teapot? I told you not to touch any of the boxes in the guest room!”

“You wrote my name on it—’For Beth.’”

“So what if I did? You were not to open anything in the room! Where did you find that box?”

“It was in the closet.”

“In the closet! Were you digging around in my private possessions? Snooping? Is that it?”

“Mom, that is beside the point.”

“It certainly is not. The things in this house are mine, and I told you not to touch any of them. I warned you! I said, ‘Hands off.’ But you didn’t listen. You poked and pried, just like you always do. Getting into things that aren’t any of your business. That box was for later. After I’m gone.”

“You mean dead? You wanted me to wait until you were dead to find this teapot?”

“I put items from your childhood in the box. You don’t need any of them now. They’re just mementos. I should have thrown them all out when I moved.”

“And then I wouldn’t have known. You would have preferred it that way.”

Beth stared at her mother. Jan looked across the room toward the curtained window, her lower lip quivering. “Obviously I did not want you to know anything about it at this time,” she said in a measured tone, as if trying to corral something that was determined to escape. “I put the teapot in the box. I sealed the box. I told you not to get into my things. And you disobeyed me!”

She whirled on her daughter. “You never do what you’re supposed to do, Beth! You think it’s fine to just go wherever you want to go, do whatever you want, act however you please! You don’t care about privacy and silence and decent, normal behavior! I’m sorry I let you come here this weekend. I wasn’t ready for you yet. And now you’ve gone and done this—this thing.”

Beth clutched the china teapot to her belly, wounded by her mother’s accusations, in spite of her determination not to care. She was the one who should be angry—not her mother! Beth had found the note. The secret. She deserved to be furious. But her mother had turned her own guilt into fury, as she always did. And soon the anger would transform into cold, bitter silence.

“Mother, I’m sorry I failed to honor your request not to touch the boxes in the guest room.” Beth sat down in the rocking chair next to the bed. “But you have to tell me what this note means. Is it true?”

Jan reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “I don’t even remember what it says—and don’t read it to me! Just put it back in the teapot. And give that to me. I’ll take care of it.”

“Get rid of it, you mean? No way. It’s mine. You put it in my box. I’m not turning it over to you to throw in the trash.” She spread her fingers over the teapot’s smooth, porcelain shape. “You wrote that Thomas Wood gave you the tea set. Who is he?”

“Someone I knew a long time ago. He’s gone, all right? Dead.”

“Dead? Was he my father?”

Her mother’s blue eyes crackled. “John Lowell was your father, Beth, and don’t you ever forget that. He was the best father a girl could ever have. He loved you so much! He did everything for you! He treated you like…like—”

“Like I was his own?”

“Like a princess!”

“Like the queen rose in the rose garden of girls? But that’s not who I was! It’s not who I am! Who am I, Mom?”

“You are Bethany Ann Lowell, and you know it. Now stop all this nonsense. I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you must be, too. Go back to your room and…” She paused. “Better yet, I’ll make you some hot chocolate. You can drink it while I clean up the mess you made in the guest room.”

“Then what? We’ll go to bed and pretend this never happened?” Beth’s jaw clenched. Her mother would try to sweep this under the family rug—Beth just knew it. But not this time. She lifted her chin. “How did my father die?”

“He had ALS. Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

“I’m not talking about Dad. I mean him. Thomas Wood. When did he die? What happened to him?”

“He wasn’t your father. He was just a man I knew. A college acquaintance. A friend.”

“A boyfriend.”

“Okay, maybe. We dated in college, and then he moved away, and that was that.”

“Except that you were pregnant with me.”

Jan heaved an enormous sigh. “All right, so what if I was? Does that part matter—really? The point is…John and I married, and he raised you as his own precious daughter. He gave you everything you could need, and he loved you dearly. Certainly as much as Billy and Bobby.”

“But they were his natural children.”

“By birth. Yes, they were. Yet, you were as much John’s natural child as your brothers, Beth. He loved you every bit as deeply. He never showed any preferences. You were his little pumpkin, remember? His ragamuffin. His Bethy-boo.”

“Mother, you know I loved Dad. Nothing will change that. Certainly not this teapot. But why didn’t you tell me about Thomas Wood? Why wasn’t I allowed to know?”

“What for? It made no difference to your daddy and me. Why should you care?”

“Because!” Beth stood and shook her head. “Because I’m different! I’m not the same as the rest of you.”

“That’s ridiculous. Every child is unique. Look at your brothers.”

“Peas in a pod. That’s what Dad used to say. Billy and Bobby, peas in a pod. He never included me.”

“You were a girl.”

“I wasn’t his child.”

Jan exploded up from the bed. “Yes, you were, Beth, and don’t ever let me hear you say such a thing again! You are John’s daughter every bit as much as your brothers are his sons. If you deny that, you deny everything he was!”

“How can you say that?”

“Because he was the man who married me! He did what he didn’t have to do. That’s who John Lowell was—decent, faithful, steady. I could count on him. He never gave me a moment’s doubt about his love for me—or for you, either. The very essence of your father was his willingness to set aside the past and face the future. Did you watch him die?” As she asked the question, Jan’s face hardened. “Oh, I forgot. You were away at college. And then traveling. Colombia and Botswana and places like that. You weren’t here to watch your daddy’s battle.”

“I came home.”

“How often? In his last year, you were home maybe twice.”

“Mother, it was hard to deal with. It was hard to see what was happening to him.”

“Hard to deal with? He didn’t find it hard to deal with the fact that you were another man’s birth child. He didn’t find it hard to deal with his pregnant bride. He accepted all that—just the way he accepted that his disease was going to rob him of every ounce of strength…the ability to talk…even his eyes, at the end. He couldn’t move his eyes, Beth. Did you know that? Because of it, he couldn’t even communicate with me. That brilliant man—silenced by a disease! But he kept on. John pushed forward, never feeling sorry for himself, never looking back. That was your father. That’s who raised you and loved you and gave you everything he had.”

Beth sniffled as she looked down at the teapot in her arms. Why did she feel guilty about even holding the thing? She had been a terrible daughter. And she was even more despicable now that she had opened the box, seen the tea set and read the note.

But she couldn’t help how she felt. She needed to know. Who was the man her mother had named in that cryptic message? What sort of person had given her an ivory, rose-strewn tea set…along with an unexpected baby…?

“Just tell me one thing,” Beth said. “Did he know about me? Thomas Wood?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference to him. He had his own plans.”

“So you never told him.”

“I hinted. He probably knew. He left anyway.”

“Where did he go?”

“That’s enough, Beth. You don’t need all these details. Let’s go into the kitchen and get some cocoa. Here, give me the teapot.”

Beth clutched it tighter. “It’s mine. You put it in my box.”

“Thomas gave it to me.”

“And you gave it to his daughter. A childhood memento, you said. My childhood. And I’m keeping it.”

“Fine, then.” She flicked her hand in a gesture of disregard as she walked past her daughter. “I don’t care if you keep it. Take the whole box when you leave. Put it into that tiny little roomette you call an apartment.”

“It’s a studio.”

“Whatever.”

Jan could hardly blink back the tears that kept filling her eyes. As she filled the kettle with tap water, she wanted to shout at her daughter. Go away! Just leave me alone! What do you know about anything? You had life handed to you on a silver platter, and it was all thanks to John Lowell.

Oh, John! If only he were here right now. But that would be awful. Thankfully he had died before Beth found the teapot. He would have been crushed to see her reaction—so demanding and curious and stubborn. Hugging that teapot as though it were her own unborn baby. Clinging to it!

Jan sniffled and dug in her robe pocket for a tissue. Why had she even kept that stupid tea set? She should have thrown it out the moment Thomas turned his back on her and walked away. Thomas had professed to love her, but he had no idea what that really meant.

John, with his blond hair and gentle smile…he was the king of true love. He had heard about her predicament in a Sunday school class at church. Jan’s older brother had brought up his pregnant, unwed sister as a “prayer request.” Right. Perfect fodder for the holy gossip mill. But then John had come knocking on her parents’ door, asking if Jan would enjoy going out for ice cream, wondering how she liked her college history class, volunteering to lend her his books for a research paper.

At the time, he had a job as a college teaching assistant while working toward his master’s degree in history at Tyler’s branch of the University of Texas. It wasn’t exactly proper etiquette for John Lowell and Jan Calhoun to date, seeing as he was a teacher and she was a student at the same school. But she hadn’t been in his history class, after all, and he was a friend of her brother’s. In the end, no one from the college seemed to mind, and their awkward first dates quickly turned to love. At least John had fallen in love with Jan. She was still a wreck over Thomas when she agreed to marry.

But time took care of that. Did it ever! John became everything to Jan. Her lover, her supporter, her encourager, her best friend. Father to her daughter, and then to their sons. Those were happy days, for the most part. Jan could look back on her marriage with satisfaction. She had done the right thing. The smart, sensible, level-headed thing. All except for that tea set.

She set a mug on the counter and dumped in an envelope of instant cocoa powder and tiny, dried-up marshmallows. Well, she wasn’t about to give in to her daughter’s curiosity. Beth now had all the information she needed about Thomas Wood. He had given her his DNA but nothing more. He had vanished. And he was dead.

At least, Jan was pretty sure Thomas had died. So that was that. Que sera sera.

“I thought we might drive to Tyler and visit the rose garden in the morning.” Jan forced a lightness to her voice as she poured steaming water into the mug and began to stir. “It’s a little early in the season for the best display of flowers, of course, but there will still be a lot to see. I’m thinking of putting in a bed of roses here at the new house, and I’d like to get some ideas for which variety would work best. Maybe you could help me choose. I may plant some climbers up the south side, too.”

Her daughter regarded her coolly. “How did Thomas Wood die?”

“Stop this, Beth.” Jan slid the mug across the counter, sloshing hot chocolate over the rim and down the side. She stomped to the sink for a rag. “That subject is closed. Now, do you want to go to Tyler tomorrow or not? We could stop at the cemetery and visit your father’s grave.”

“Do you think I actually want to look at some stone stuck in the ground where my father’s body was buried? Dad isn’t there. He’s in heaven, Mom, and that’s how I want to think of him.”

“Well, you ought to at least see the marker. It’s very nice. Mine is right beside it.”

“Oh, Mother!”

“What?” Jan wiped up the spilled chocolate. “I’m planning ahead. I have a plot right next to your father’s. It’s not far from Nanny’s grave—near an oak tree.”

“So you and Dad can listen to the acorns fall while you’re lying side by side in your caskets?”

“That’s it.” Jan flung the rag into the sink. “I’m going to bed. If you want to stand there and say one ugly thing after another, you can just say them to yourself. I have better things to do.”

“Mom, don’t walk away. You cannot leave in the middle of this discussion.”

As Jan started toward her room, she could hear Beth following. “We’re not having a discussion,” she informed her daughter. “I was trying to make plans for tomorrow. Trying to say something nice. Hoping you might want to visit your father’s grave and remember what a wonderful, perfect man he was.”

“Dad was not perfect. He was funny and smart and kind and lots of good things. But he wasn’t perfect.” Two paces behind her mother, Beth stepped back into the bedroom. “I’m not living in some fairy-tale world, Mom. I remember Dad’s flaws, just like I see my own. And I’m not mortified that you’re imperfect, either. So, you got pregnant by your boyfriend before you were married. We’re humans. We do some stupid, wrong things. I forgive you.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness. I need you to stop making such a big deal out of the whole thing.” Jan pulled off her robe and sat on the bed. “It’s so far in the past. Let it go. Do what your daddy did and move ahead.”

“It’s in your past, but not in mine. I just found out about it, remember? Thomas Wood is news to me.”

“He wouldn’t have been if you had kept your nose out of my things. Now go to bed, Beth. I’m exhausted.”

Her daughter stood near the door, staring at her. Hating her. Reviling her. Jan had always known this was how it would be. If Beth ever found out the truth, she would despise her mother for making the decision to keep Thomas Wood a secret.

But that had been the best way. The right way. John was able to raise Beth without any interference from a shadowy, mythical father figure his daughter might throw at him in her anger. The family had been able to be normal. To behave as a family ought—no skeletons in the closet stepping out to bother them.

Of course, there was a skeleton in the closet. John and Jan knew it. But Beth and the boys…they hadn’t needed to be made aware of that potentially harmful information. Jan and John had made a choice, and they never once second-guessed it.

The only problem had been that tea set. Jan had considered getting rid of it, but the fact was…she couldn’t. Somewhere in her heart, she needed her daughter to know the truth. And she needed to preserve that tiny spark of memory that had been Thomas Wood.

So she had wrapped the set of china in layers of bubbly plastic and hidden it at the bottom of a box. No one was to open it until after her death. Then, if the box happened to get lost somewhere or was put into the trash or given to charity, fine. Or, if Beth actually opened it, she could deal with the truth then. When she was older. Wiser. Less prone to outbursts.

Her daughter’s dark brown eyes accused Jan from across the room. “I’m not done with this, Mom,” Beth vowed. Her lips tightening, she turned and left the room, shutting the door a little too hard behind her.

Jan let out a breath and dropped back onto her pillows. She knew Beth too well to think her daughter would drop the subject now…or ever. Beth would bring it up again and again. She would want to look at it the way she used to examine rocks she dug out of the dirt and washed in the kitchen sink. She would turn it one way, then another, asking questions and making speculations, the way she’d done as an inquisitive child. Do you think there’s a diamond inside this rock? If I cut it in half, would it be the same color inside as it is on the outside? What are rocks made of? Are rocks alive? Why do they keep coming up out of the ground?

Rolling over, Jan covered her head with the spare pillow. But nothing would block the image of her daughter’s accusing brown eyes, so like the eyes of Thomas Wood. The floodgates of memory burst open, and suddenly Jan was immersed in the past she had thought was buried forever.

Chapter Three

His eyes like deep pools of chocolate, Thomas sat on the doorstep at the back of the Calhoun house and gazed at Jan. “Why not?” he asked her. “You could at least come and see it.”

Why not? Seated beside him, so close their hips touched, Jan hugged her middle. Thomas had graduated from college a week ago, and two days later, she had learned the awful, wonderful truth. Snuggled down inside her, in the soft folds of a perfect nest, their baby was growing.

So, why didn’t she want to spend next semester’s savings, risk the life of her unborn child, freak out her parents and board an airplane bound for a war-torn island off the coast of India? Why didn’t she want to just go off with Thomas Wood, unmarried and pregnant, like a couple of hippie backpackers with no ties and no morals, living on nothing but love? Who did he think she was, anyway?

“I can’t go with you, that’s all,” she said. Her hair, a waterfall of thick auburn curls, tumbled over her knees as she crouched barefoot on the step. “I’m only nineteen, and we’re not married and besides…I don’t want to go to India.”

“It’s not India, Jan. It’s Sri Lanka.” He picked up a strand of her hair and twirled it around his finger. Thomas had wonderful hands—big, brown, manly fingers with thick nails and calluses that proved he knew hard work. Of all the things about him that made her stomach do flip-flops, his hands were the best. She recalled the first time she had met Thomas—he’d been lifting a rosebush from a flower cart into the trunk of her mom’s car at the nursery his parents owned. She had noticed his hands first, loved them instantly, then looked at his face and realized she had seen him in school.

“Hi,” he had said to her, and hooked his thumbs on the pockets of his jeans. He gave her a crooked smile. “I think we were in biology together last semester.”

She had nearly melted into a puddle in the parking lot. How could any man have fingers like that? And those eyes! And that mouth! And why hadn’t she paid better attention in biology?

Now, almost two years later, she still felt the same. But it was no longer just a physical spark between them. Thomas had walked into her heart, broken down all her restraints, taken her body, given his in return, become her whole world. And now he wanted her to abandon family, friends, stability, security—everything—to follow him halfway around the globe.

How could she say yes?

How could she say no?

“We’ll be in India for less than a day,” he told her, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. “The plane lands in Madras, and then we switch airlines and fly to Colombo. Someone from the tea company will meet us in the city and drive us up to Nuwara Eliya.”

“I can’t go, Thomas.”

“I’ll help pay your way. It’s not as expensive as you think. Besides, you got a scholarship last year, and you’ll get one when you transfer over to UT-Tyler. I know you will. C’mon, It’ll be fun, the two of us together.”

“My parents would have a cow.”

“You’re not a kid anymore, Jan. They like me. So what if we travel together?”

“So what? We’re Christians! They would die of embarrassment if I went off on a vacation with my boyfriend. The whole church would know.”

She swallowed as she thought of the months to come. Everyone would soon know about the baby she was carrying. An abortion was out of the question. Jan was studying to become a teacher, and she loved children. All her life, she had dreamed of having a big family of her own. This was an unplanned beginning, but she wasn’t about to cut short her child’s life just because things had started badly. No, she would simply tell her parents what had happened, and then she would have the baby…and move into an apartment of her own…and try to finish school…and…

Fighting tears, she dipped her head. “Just go, Thomas. Go home. Do whatever you want. This isn’t going to work out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He turned and caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. “Listen, Jan, I wrote you the whole time I was gone, didn’t I? It’s not like we were apart that long anyway. Three months. We both stayed faithful, and nothing changed between us. Why are you acting this way all of a sudden?”

“Nothing changed? You changed.”

“I did not. I just evolved into who I was already becoming. We’ve been together two years, Jan. You knew what I wanted out of life, and now it’s within my grasp. I got a great internship, I finished up my courses, I graduated, and now Wilson Teas wants me to come back and work there full-time. Management level. This is a great opportunity for me. And Sri Lanka is an amazing place. You’ll love it.”

“I’m not going, okay?” She pushed away from him and stood. Walking across the yard, she tugged her shorts down on her thighs and wondered how long she would even be able to wear them. By the end of summer, she’d be in maternity clothes. Unbelievable.

She could hear Thomas behind her. “What’s the big deal, Jan? Why are you pushing me away? I came all the way back to Texas to see you.”

“You came home to graduate.”

“And to be with you again. I care about you. I love you—you know that. Now come with me to Sri Lanka. Just for the summer. If you hate it, fine. But you won’t.”

She turned and set her hands on her hips. “You got cholera over there!”

“Yeah, and then I got well. I’m fine, now.”

“They’re having a civil war!”

“Not up in the mountains where we’ll be. The country’s an independent republic. It’s mainly just a problem between these two groups, the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The Tamils want an independent homeland, because they’re Hindus. The Sinhalese are Buddhists, and they’re the huge majority, and they’ve got the power.”

“I don’t care!” she sang out. “Tamils, Sinhalese—”

“But the government isn’t going to let the Tamils do anything too bad. Americans aren’t even a target. And the people I worked with on the tea estate are all really nice. I never felt afraid.” He raked his fingers through his long, shaggy brown hair. “You’ll be there with me for the Kandy Esala Perahera in July. It’s this amazing pageant with ten days of torch-bearers, whip-crackers, dancers and drummers. They’ve got elephants all decorated and lit up. Everyone told me it’s spectacular. We’ll see so much other stuff, too. This ancient ruined city called Anuradhapura has a temple that supposedly contains the right collarbone of Buddha.”

“What? Buddha’s collarbone? Come on, Thomas! That’s ridiculous!” Frowning at the very idea of herself in a place where people worshipped things like that, Jan stepped away from Thomas again. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked toward her mother’s flower garden. “That’s stupid! I mean, it’s just not for me, you know? I’m from Texas, Thomas, and I don’t need Buddha’s dumb collarbone to make my life complete. I don’t want to see a temple, and I don’t want to visit a place with malaria and cholera and bullets flying around. Okay? Okay? Can you just drop it?”

He stood by the picket fence, thumbs in his pockets the way she loved, staring at the ground. This conflict had been building between them for weeks. The moment Thomas got back, he’d begun putting subtle pressure on her—dropping hints, talking nonstop about the wonderful island and the amazing tea estate and the fascinating people. She kept her mouth shut, hoping the whole thing would go away.

Finally he mentioned that he might be offered a full-time job in Sri Lanka. Then he actually got a letter from the company offering him a contract. He wavered, talking about it one way and then another every time they were together. She’d tried to change the subject or ignore him. But today, after Jan had spent the morning hanging over the toilet vomiting, he’d told her he wanted her to go with him.

Not married. Nothing permanent. Just a trip. A summer vacation. See the place. Have a look around. Do some touring. Then she could return to Tyler and start her junior year at UT. A wonderful plan.

Right.

“Are you telling me you don’t ever want to go to Sri Lanka?” Thomas asked. “You wouldn’t even be willing to visit me there?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But I want to work with tea!”

“You majored in agriculture, Thomas. Your parents own a rose company. Why on earth can’t you just stay here in Tyler and grow roses like everybody else? Why does it have to be tea?”

“I told you. I don’t want to be like everybody else. I want to see the world. I want to live in different places. Tea can take me wherever I want to go. They grow it in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India, China, all over the globe. It will be an adventure. Don’t you see? A great life.”

“Well, have fun on your big adventure, then.” She turned away, blinking back tears. “Go, Thomas. Just go home. I don’t even want to see you again. You’ve changed so much.”

“I have not, Jan! Why do you keep accusing me of that?” He caught up to her again, setting his hands on her shoulders. “Please, babe, don’t be this way. It’s me you’re talking to, okay? The same guy as ever. Only, I found out the world is a big place, and I want to experience it. I want you with me. I want it to be us…together.”

“What are you saying?” She looked into his brown eyes. Was this a marriage proposal? If so, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “You said you wanted me to go to Sri Lanka with you for the summer and then come back here.”

“Right. That makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, you’d have to leave so you can finish college.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You couldn’t stay there. You wouldn’t have a work visa. Besides, you’re not even twenty yet.”

“But I’m old enough to travel halfway around the world with you? Old enough to flout my parents’ belief system and throw it in their faces? And then what? Come sashaying back to Tyler like nothing happened? Is that what you’re asking me to do, Thomas?”

“Is this about us having sex? Because if you’re going to go into your major guilt trip again—”

“This is about you telling me to act like an adult by going to Sri Lanka with you, and then turning right around and telling me I’m too young to marry you.”

“Marry me? I’m not ready to get married! I’m only twenty-two.”

“Fine, then. I don’t want to marry you, either.”

“Who said anything about getting married?”

“Nobody, because it’s not happening. Ever! Go to your stupid island and see Buddha’s collarbone and grow tea and have a wonderful life. I’m staying here in Tyler where I belong.”

“Come on, Jan. Don’t make such a big deal out of everything. I’m just talking about summer vacation. The two of us together. And maybe in the future…maybe if you like Sri Lanka…and after you get your degree…and I’m more settled…and older—”

“No, Thomas.” She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “No, no, no. If you want us to be together, you’d better stay here in Tyler. Because this is where I live. This is my home, and that’s my family in that house, and I’m going to get a degree and teach school, and have a baby and—” She hiccuped. “I’m going to marry someone who wants the same things I do, and we’ll have babies. Children, lots of them. And I won’t have to worry about my kids being blown up with land mines, or mosquitoes giving them all malaria, or any of that stupid stuff!”

“I love you, Jan! How can you tell me just to walk away from you like this?”

“I have my priorities.” She folded her hands over her stomach. “I know what’s most important in my life. And it’s not Sri Lanka.”

“It’s not me, you mean.”

“I didn’t say that.” She was crying so hard now that her nose had begun to run, and she felt like she might throw up again. “I love you, too, Thomas. I do. But I want the guy I met at Wood’s Nursery and Greenhouse. Not this foreigner you’ve turned into.”

“Jan, please. Try to understand. Try harder.”

“I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I want security. Stability. I need it. Nothing’s going to change that about me. You can’t change who I am into someone you want me to be.”

“And you can’t change me, either.”

They stared at each other. He was crying now, too, his eyes red and tears hanging on the fringes of his lower lashes. He swallowed and jammed his hands into his back pockets.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I guess this is it. It’s over between us.”

She nodded as bitter bile began to back up into her throat. “Bye.”

Before he could see her completely lose it, she ran across the yard, flung open the back door, made it to a bathroom and retched in the toilet.

Jan pressed her pillow against her face, blotting her tears. Dumb, dumb, dumb to be crying about Thomas Wood after all these years! She had done the right thing. To protect herself and her baby, she had cut him out of her life. Everything about him. She had thrown away the letters he had written her from Sri Lanka. She had packed the little gifts he had given her over their two years together—a pretty candle, a picture of the Rocky Mountains, a couple of science fiction novels she had forced herself to read, photos of the two of them together. Before he was scheduled to leave town, she had taken the box over to his house and dumped it on the front porch.

Three days later, she had discovered a box on her own front porch. Even now, the memory of Thomas’s handwriting on that brown cardboard made her heart hammer so hard, her pulse rang in her ears. She had knelt on the painted boards and pulled apart the flaps of the box. Expecting to find things she had given him, she was shocked to see a tea set sitting inside a nest of white foam peanuts.

It was beautiful. Covered with pink roses, her favorite flower, the teapot was rimmed in shining gold. Jan had lifted the pot in both hands, holding it to the afternoon sunlight, marveling at the glow of the glaze on the ivory china. Delicate bluebells, green leaves and yellow daisies mingled with the rose blossoms. The pot itself was a strange shape, squared into four corners with four small feet, yet somehow still soft and undulant. She had lifted the lid and peered inside to find a tiny white envelope wedged at the bottom of the pot.

Even now, lying in bed, a forty-five-year-old widow with three grown kids and a whole other life, she could see the words Thomas had written to her in blue ballpoint ink. “I bought this tea set for you at an antiques shop in London on my way back to Texas. I knew you would like it. The pattern is Summertime, and I had hoped that would be our time. I will always love you. Thomas.”

Setting the lid on the porch floor, Jan had turned over the teapot. Grimwade, it read. Royal Winton. Summertime.

She had taken out the creamer, a funny little squared-off thing with four feet that matched the teapot. And then she had studied the rectangular sugar bowl and the matched pair of gold lines that rimmed it on the inside. The set looked so pretty…too pretty…on the old, creaky porch.

Crying all over again—it seemed she was either crying or vomiting in those warm days of early summer—Jan had settled the china pieces back into their foam nest and carried the box upstairs to her bedroom. Briefly she had considered putting the tea set on her bedside table. But the thought of Thomas holding that delicate china in his big, wonderful hands…walking into an antiques store just for her…writing her the note…loving her…

“Oh, rats!” she breathed out. Jan threw back her covers and swung her feet out of bed. Plodding to the bathroom, she thought of how slender and long-legged she once had been. And how pudgy and ancient she felt these days. Thanks to her daughter’s snooping, she wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep. Tomorrow she would have swollen eyelids and a fat nose from crying all night. She would be irritable, and Beth would start bugging her about the tea set and Thomas and all the things Jan had worked so very hard to put away.

Well, Beth was not going to get the whole story. And that was that. Thomas was a good man, just as she had written. But he had not hesitated to walk out of the Calhoun backyard that afternoon. He hadn’t called or dropped in to say goodbye before flying off to Sri Lanka again. Only four short letters with strange stamps had appeared in the mailbox in Tyler.

Gone, just like that. Pfft. Out of Jan’s life, as though a match had been snuffed by the wind. Nothing had remained of those two years of passion, two years of insane, crazy, mad love. Nothing but Beth. Little brown-eyed, brown-haired Beth, who looked so much like her father, sometimes it was all Jan could do to keep from showing how deeply the child affected her.

Beth would stare long and intensely at her mother, just the way Thomas had, and Jan wanted to grab the little girl and hold on so tightly that maybe she could feel Thomas’s breath against her cheek again. And other times Beth would give a toss of her hair and go wandering off from the house for hours, never bothering to tell her mother where she was. That was when Jan fought to keep from snatching her by the shoulders and shouting out the speech she had often rehearsed for Thomas.

Stop leaving me! she wanted to yell. Stay with me, where you belong, and stop running away all the time! Don’t leave me alone! Need me…want me…be lost without me, the way I am without you.

But Beth had too much of Thomas Wood in her to read beyond her mother’s placid face and calm words. She didn’t see or understand or even care how much she meant to Jan. Like her father, she would happily jaunt off to Sri Lanka or Botswana or some other foreign place where you could die of cholera or require armed guards and Spanish lace to keep your house secure.

Genetics. All the nurture in the world couldn’t overcome a wanderer’s nature.

After blowing her nose and splashing water on her face, Jan walked back into the room and checked the clock on the bedside table. Nearly three. Great. And there was John, sitting in his oak picture frame, looking at her like he always did. “Get a grip, Jan,” he would say when her nerves unraveled and she began to fall apart. Nothing’s that bad. It’s not a big deal. Relax, honeybunch. Let it go.

She ought to paint some of John’s platitudes on her bedroom wall. They would comfort her the way her husband had with his calm, quiet smile and a pat of his hand. He would lean over and press his lips to her cheek and make that little smack.

“There you go, sweetie pie,” he would say. “Better now?”

And she was. Truly, John always made things better. From the day he had offered to marry her and become the father of her baby, to the day he exhaled his last, labored breath, John had brought peace and security into Jan’s life. He had given her everything she wanted and needed. Always. He hadn’t asked her to change. Or leave. Or go to strange places. He had just patted her hand and planted a kiss on her cheek and called her honeybunch. And that had been more than enough.

“Oh, John.” Taking up the photograph she had framed not long after his death, Jan gave the glass a wipe with the sleeve of her pink robe. “What am I supposed to do without you? You weren’t supposed to leave me. Thomas did that already. You were supposed to stay.”

Battling a new wave of tears, Jan took off her robe, lay back on her bed once more and shut her eyes, hugging the frame against her chest. Maybe she ought to pray. Beth always chided her mother for not being more religious. What would she say if she knew Jan wasn’t even going to church these days?

Well, what was the point? You prayed, and your husband died anyway. You went to church, and then what? Your kids grew up and left home. Your Sunday school class just got older and older until you couldn’t believe you belonged in the same room with those wrinkled, gray-haired fogies. Your preacher kept yammering on the same Bible verses again and again until you could practically preach his sermon for him. Potlucks and Bible studies and revivals and prayer meetings and on and on.

The thought of it all made Jan tired. Still holding John’s picture, she turned onto her side and pulled the sheet up over her ears. Just as she was sure she would never get to sleep, she realized she had been imagining herself in a shoe store buying a pair of hiking boots, which had nothing to do with anything. And then the hiking boots turned into furry yellow puppies. And that was the end of that.

Jan woke with a gasp. A slanted sunbeam warmed her cheek. It must be after nine! Good grief!

She sat up in bed, rubbed her face with her hands and blinked, trying to see through the residue of last night’s tears. Oh, great. This was not good. She needed to be up fixing breakfast for Beth. She ought to have taken a shower by now. Dried her hair. Put on makeup. Dressed in a pair of slacks and a nice top. She was still determined to take her daughter to the Rose Garden. Or the Azalea Walk. Either would be beautiful this time of year.

As she fumbled her way out of bed, Jan saw that she had slept with John’s framed photograph all night. Poor John…How hard he had battled that awful ALS—three years of fighting, until he had looked nothing like the man in the picture. She set it up on her bedside table again. This was how she would remember him—pudgy and freckled and grinning from ear to ear.

“There,” she said, taking a last look at the picture. She grabbed her robe and slipped it on as she hurried out into the kitchen. Thank goodness there were no signs of life. Beth must be sleeping in, as she always had on school holidays when she was younger.

Jan padded in her thick socks to the coffeemaker. She would get the pot started, and then she could run to the bathroom for a quick shower. This was going to be a better day, she thought as she stood at the sink to fill the glass carafe with water. She and Beth would start off on the right foot, and that way Jan could head off any…

She stared at her empty driveway. The rental car was gone.

Chapter Four

“I’m looking for yearbooks.” Beth leaned against the reference counter. “From John Tyler High School.”

The librarian was a nice-looking young man with dimples. “The Alcalde! Are you an alum?”

No one in New York would have asked such a personal question. In large cities the world over, Beth had discovered, people got down to business. Chitchat took too long, didn’t really matter, and you’d never see the person again, so why bother?

With a fair amount of chagrin, she recalled her first week in the Big Apple. She had walked into a perfume boutique, said hello to a saleswoman and—like a good Southern girl—she began with a comment about the weather and then moved on to discuss her own favorite fragrances, how she enjoyed floral scents because she was from a town in Texas where roses were grown for export, how she had just arrived in New York and was excited to have found a studio apartment she could afford and on and on. Finally, Beth had realized the woman was staring at her as though she had just landed from Jupiter. Not only had Beth breached the “no small talk” rule, but her Texas twang had no doubt branded her as someone who just fell off the turnip truck.

This wasn’t New York or London or Toronto, though, so Beth smiled back at the young librarian. “Yep, I graduated from JT a few years back. Go, Lions!”

He laughed. “I went to Robert E. Lee High. I’m working on my library science degree at UT-Tyler now. It’s a good school, but I’ll be glad when I’ve got my degree and can move away. Tyler.” He rolled his eyes. “My ancestors were some of the town’s first settlers, and we’ve been here ever since.”

Beth nodded. “Time to set forth into the world. I live in New York.”

“Really? Wow. I bet that’s different.”

“You can say that again.” Beth reflected for a moment on the number of old families still living in the area. “Did you ever hear of anyone named Wood around here?”

“Wood? Like Wood’s Nursery and Greenhouse? Wood’s Landscaping? Wood Tractor and Lawn Service? There are several businesses by that name.”

For some reason this shocked Beth. Of course she knew about the Wood family. The name was on any number of small enterprises around the city. She could have been living among her relatives all her life and not realized it.

Had they known about Beth? Was her heritage a Tyler secret? Did people elbow each other as she went by…? There’s Thomas Wood’s daughter, but don’t let on that you know….

“I’m looking for someone,” she told the young man. “His name is Thomas Wood. Or was. I think he might have passed away a while back. I’m pretty sure he would have graduated from John Tyler High in the early eighties.”

“All our copies of the Alcalde are down that row of reference books across from the soda machine. You can’t check the year-books out, but you can use our copier if you need certain pages. Dime a page.”

Beth thanked him and headed across the library. As she crossed the reading area, she glanced at an elderly man browsing the Dallas Morning News. Did he know? If she walked up to him and said, “I’m Thomas Wood’s daughter,” would he reply, “Oh, I know that. He left town, but your mother stayed here and married John Lowell.”

Why not? In a city of around ninety thousand, people ran into each other now and then. They joined things together—churches, PTAs, Lions and Rotary Clubs. They congregated at the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden or the Caldwell Zoo. They celebrated annually at the Azalea and Spring Flower Trail, the Festival on the Square and the Texas Rose Festival.

And they talked. They talked at grocery stores, on the sidewalks, in church, at the coin laundries, even in the library. How many had known about Beth’s lineage and said nothing to her—but plenty to each other?

The thought of people gossiping behind her back made her feel sick. And angry. She stepped between the tall bookcases and spotted the rows of yearbooks. But as she started to reach for one, she hesitated. Maybe she didn’t want to know what Thomas Wood had looked like. Maybe she ought to be like her mother and pretend he really hadn’t existed.

Thomas Wood had been a mistake, Jan seemed to be saying.

The pregnancy had been a mistake.

Did that make Beth a mistake?

A brief time in Jan Calhoun’s distant past had been nothing more than a blip in the comfortable straight line of her life. Just a small error that she and John Lowell had rectified with their careful, structured and secure marriage. Running her fingertips across the spines of the royal-blue-and-white yearbooks, Beth reflected on the man who had raised her from birth. Her daddy.

As much conflict as she now felt about the whole situation, she would never deny that John Lowell had been her true father. The family photo albums proved that. As an infant, she had spat processed carrots right in his face. He had held her tiny fingers when she was taking her first baby steps. He had pushed her on the swing in the backyard and taught her how to bait a fishhook, and he kissed her cheek when she graduated from high school. She had loved her daddy.

So why bother to look for a picture of a stranger whose DNA she happened to share? A guy who had impregnated his girlfriend and then walked away…a loser who had sowed his wild oats, never imagining a baby girl would grow from a night of furtive wrestling in the back seat of some car…a dead man whose brief life had meant nothing to his daughter…

Clenching her fists in the anguish of uncertainty, Beth read the dates stamped in gold letters on the volumes of the Alcalde. What was the point of looking for him? But then again…why shouldn’t she? How could it hurt?

She was reaching for a yearbook when her cell phone went off. Jumping at the unexpected sound in the cavernous library, she jerked the device from her purse and frowned at the caller ID. It was her mother. Beth silenced the phone and let her voice mail answer. No way was Jan Lowell going to butt into this decision.

Beth had been unable to sleep the night before, alternately furious with her mother, sad at the memory of her father’s recent suffering and death, curious about Thomas Wood. She had tried to piece things together, mentally walking back through the years and wondering if one thing or another had held more significance than she thought. It was a nightmare—only she had been awake through it all.

As the sun was coming up over the lake, she had packed her bags, thrown them into the rental car and driven back to Tyler. She cruised around town, looking at the Lowell family’s old house, remembering friends and events. She passed her brother’s home and considered knocking on his door to ask him if he knew she was just his half sister.

But Bill hadn’t been aware of anything, Beth realized. If he had, he would have blabbed years ago. So would Bob. Crazy little brothers. Neither one could resist telling on each other or on Beth. If they had known their sister had a different birth father, they would have told her.

Waiting for the public library to open that morning, Beth had eaten a doughnut at her family’s favorite restaurant just off the town square. Every Sunday after church, the whole Lowell crew had traipsed in, settled at their regular table and ordered the same meals they always did. Fried chicken for Dad, roast beef and gravy for Mom, pork steak for Bob, ribs for Bill. Good old Southern dishes.

Beth always ate spaghetti. Italian. She had been ready to taste the world even back then. Like Thomas Wood, who had left Tyler and never come back. Had her parents sensed a difference in her? Had it affected the way they treated her?

Unwilling to hesitate a moment longer, Beth grabbed an armload of yearbooks and carried them to a table. She sat down and flipped through the index at the back for the most likely year. In moments, she had found him. Thomas Wood.

And he was a dork! In his senior photo, he wore a wide tie and a too-small, pin-striped jacket, and his hair hung in strange, choppy lengths almost to his shoulders. He wasn’t smiling.

Beth stared at him, trying to see through the black-and-white photograph into the truth of who Thomas Wood had been. Dark eyes…like hers. Dark hair…like hers. Straight nose…like hers.

But there was a lot of him that looked nothing like his daughter—a pronounced Adam’s apple, a square jaw and those hands! Beth studied the one hand that the photographer had evidently posed so it showed Thomas’s class ring. Huge fingers stretched across the sleeve of his jacket. Big, rough hands roped with veins. Callused knuckles. Round white nails.

She lifted her own hand and studied her slender fingers and manicured nails, turning them one way and then another. No, she hadn’t gotten them from him, that was certain. But so many other things…

Bob and Bill had inherited a mix of their father’s sandy hair and their mother’s auburn curls. They both had freckles and a tendency to go soft in the middle. Their noses tilted up at the ends, like Jan’s. And their ears stuck out a little, like John’s. But big sister Beth had brown eyes and board-straight brown hair and olive skin.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” The reference desk clerk startled Beth as he pulled back a chair and sat down at the table. “Thomas Wood—well, there he is. Guess you struck oil after all. Get a load of that tie!”

Beth tried to smile. “Yeah, I found him. Thanks.”

“It’s possible we would have pictures of him going all the way back to kindergarten. You want me to look?”

Actually, she wanted the librarian to go away. But Beth pushed the yearbooks in his direction. “Sure. See what you can find.”

“Thomas Edward Wood.” The young man flipped to the index in the back of a volume of the Alcalde. “Did you come all the way from New York to look him up? Because, in case you didn’t know, we can do research for you and communicate online. We’re glad to do that. Not all libraries have those kinds of reference services, but we do. And it’s free!”

“Great. I’ll remember that.” While the clerk went to do some more digging, Beth read the inscriptions under her birth father’s senior year photograph. Thomas Wood had not held a class office or worked on the yearbook staff or acted in a play. He hadn’t done much in sports, either. His freshman year, he had played junior varsity football. He had been on the basketball team—first JV and then varsity—all four years. And that was it. His future? The caption said he planned to attend Tyler Junior College and major in agriculture.

An ag major! He was a hick! Her father was a dork and a hick. A goofball with a tight sport coat and big hands and no more aspirations than to be a farmer.

Of course, being a farmer wasn’t exactly an easy life. Beth knew many of them couldn’t make a go of it. To take college classes showed Thomas Wood had some gumption. And he had chosen that beautiful antique tea set. Maybe there was something ambitious and romantic in him after all.

Beth read the quote he had chosen to have placed beneath his photograph. It was from Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book she had never read but had heard was one of the most saccharine pieces of schmaltz of all time.

“There’s a reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!”

Yeah, right. We can be free! Good motto, Thomas Wood. Get your girlfriend pregnant and then abandon her. If you had been a creature of excellence, intelligence and skill, you would have stuck around and done your duty. At least you could have paid child support.

The fact was…she hated him. There, she had acknowledged the truth. Beth stared at the picture of the teenager in the tight coat and wide tie. He was a dweeb, a dork, and she hated him. Good riddance, loser.

Shutting the book, she pushed back from the table. The desk clerk glanced up. “I found him for you in these,” he said. He pointed to a stack of yearbooks opened and placed one on top of the other. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Beth could hardly refuse to look after he’d done all that work. She leaned on her elbows as the young man pointed out his discoveries. “Eleventh grade,” he began, his stubby finger jabbing at the photograph of a skinny-faced, even longer-haired version of Thomas Wood. “Tenth grade, ninth. And then we go to grade school. He went to Douglas Elementary.”

“You’re very good.”

“Thanks. It’s my job.” Dimples deepening, he beamed as he handed her the Douglas Wildcats yearbooks one by one. “Right on down the line. He sure is a beanpole, isn’t he? Look at this one—he’s got a Band-Aid on his chin. Short hair in these younger versions. I guess that was the style back then. And here’s the last one—first grade. There you go. I don’t guess there was a yearbook for kindergarten in those days.”

Beth stared down at a toothless little boy who was looking back at her with big brown eyes. “He was my father,” she murmured. “This…person.”

“Your father? Thomas Wood?”

“My birth father. I was raised by a different man…my real father. He died two years ago.”

“They’re both dead? I’m sure sorry to hear that.”

Beth nodded as she slid the open yearbooks across one another, looking at the pictures once again. “I just found out. My mother…” She bit her lower lip. “I’m just blabbing. Forgive me.”

“No, it’s okay. Do you want me to make photocopies for you? I’ll do it for no charge.”

“That’s all right. I’m just—” She rubbed her eyes. “Okay, yes. Make copies, if you don’t mind. I’d appreciate that.”

“Sure.” He scooped up the yearbooks and headed for a back room.

Beth dropped her head onto the crook of her arm and fought tears. Why should she be sad? Thomas Wood had never been a part of her life. And now he was dead, so why cry? Maybe she was weeping for her daddy. For John Lowell who had carried the secret to his grave. She couldn’t be angry with him. He had given his whole adult life to her. His love, his time, his attention, his money.

What had possessed him to do that? Had he loved her mother so much that Beth became part of that passion? Or had he actually loved his adopted daughter, too? Had her father ever felt Beth really belonged to him? Or did her dark eyes and hair always remind him that another man had preceded him in Jan’s life?

Beth lifted her head as the eager reference desk clerk returned with a sheaf of photocopied pictures of Thomas Wood from first grade through high school graduation. He handed them to her and waved away her offer of payment. “It was fun,” he said. “Like a quest. If you need any more help, my name’s Brian. Kids used to call me Brain. That bugged me in the old days, but now I don’t mind. It fits.”

Beth stood and slid the sheets of paper into her purse. “Thanks, Brain.”

He laughed. “You’re welcome. Enjoy your visit to good ol’ Tyler.”

Giving him a thumbs-up, Beth left the library carrying information she had needed, and didn’t want, and could no longer live without. Why hadn’t her parents told her years ago? What was the point in keeping such a secret from their only daughter?

As she slid into the seat of her rental car, Beth knew she had to make one more stop before she could leave town.

An oak tree. Beth drove the wide turn around the cemetery as she looked at the trees and wondered which one of the many oaks now dropped its acorns on her father’s grave. She should have come more often. In the two years since John Lowell’s death, his daughter had visited his final resting place only twice. The first time had been at his burial service. And the second time, when Beth was back in Tyler for one of her quick visits, her mother had impulsively driven them to the cemetery after church.

Unable to express how very much she did not want to see her father’s grave, Beth had wordlessly endured the endless minutes. She and her mother had left the car and stood in silence near the headstone that listed the dates of John Lowell’s birth and death but told nothing of who he had been and what he had meant to those whose lives he had touched. Beth had tried not to think of her father’s body lying deep in the earth, decaying and transforming into something fit for a horror movie. Instead, she had studied the sky through the oak leaves and thought about the family she was preparing to move to a nice house in Panama.

John Lowell was not inside that casket, Beth had reminded herself at the time. She still believed that. Parking the rental car near the cemetery’s old iron gate, she walked toward the one grave she did know how to find. Beth’s beloved babysitter had brought her to the memorial park on regular occasions. While Nanny knelt and rearranged the silk flowers at her husband’s grave, Beth and her brothers had chased each other up and down the rows, hiding behind headstones and trees, throwing acorns or sweet gum balls at each other and generally behaving like little pests.

There it was. Beth crossed a path and approached the small plot that she remembered Nanny tending so faithfully. Nanny now would be buried beside her husband, though the child she had babysat for so many years had never once visited her final resting place. Stopping at the spot, Beth gazed down at the bright green grass, neatly mown without a dandelion in sight. Then she looked up at the pair of matching headstones.

Theodore Wood. Nancy Wood.

As if a sudden wash of ice water had slid down her spine, Beth stiffened. Again she read the two names. Theodore Wood. Nancy Wood. But this was where Teddy had been buried…Nanny and Teddy. Two people without last names. Without pasts or futures. Without children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews. Nanny had just existed to babysit Beth and her brothers, hadn’t she? She had been an icon, never changing, never growing older, never acting any different than she always did.

While Jan Lowell had taught English at John Tyler High School for twenty years, Nanny had looked after the three little Lowells. Every weekday morning when they were preschoolers, Beth, Bob and Bill had gotten out of the car at Nanny’s house and spent the day there. Their mom picked them up about four every afternoon. When they were old enough to start school themselves, they went to Nanny’s house in the afternoons for visits or on weekends to splash in Nanny’s big plastic pool and eat Popsicles from her freezer.

Nancy Wood. Nanny.

Could it be? Beth walked around the two stones, looking for some kind of clue. Might Nancy and Theodore Wood have been Thomas’s parents? But that would make Nanny Beth’s grand—

“Hey, there.”

Giving a start at the interruption, Beth swung around and saw her mother approaching down the path. Jan had left her car next to Beth’s near the cemetery gate. Wearing jeans, a knit shell top and bleached white sneakers she looked younger than she had said she felt. Younger even than Beth had thought the day before.

“She was Thomas’s mother,” Jan said, answering the question before Beth could ask it. “After you were born, Nanny put two and two together. She wanted to be a part of your life, and I thought that was a good idea. She loved you so much.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Beth demanded. “Why didn’t she say something? It’s not fair that I never knew. I treated her like…like nothing! She was my babysitter, not my grandmother.”

Beth turned away again, consumed by sorrow and regret. As the truth dawned, she fought tears. “I came and went from her house nearly every day when I was little, and I never asked her any questions. I never looked at her photo albums or paid attention to the pictures on her walls. I didn’t even ask if she had children.”

“She had one. After Thomas left Tyler, Nanny sold the nursery and greenhouse that had been in her husband’s family for three generations. That gave her more than enough money to live on, and all she really wanted to do was dote on you.”

“But why didn’t someone tell me? That’s such a…It’s wrong! It’s just wrong!” Beth clenched her fists. “How did you find me here, Mother? I don’t want to talk to you right now. I need to be by myself.”

“I saw your car parked by the gate.” She pushed her hands into her jeans’ pockets. “You didn’t think I was going to let my daughter just run off like that, did you?”

“You let my father run off.”

“John Lowell was your father!” Jan exploded. “Listen, Beth, you had better show respect for the man who raised you. You owe him that.”

“Fine, then. You let my birth father leave. You didn’t even try to make him stay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t know anything. And why is that? Because you won’t tell me. It was your big secret. You and Dad. You even got Nanny to join in the deception.”

“We never deceived you, Beth. None of us. We just chose not to tell you something we felt you didn’t need to know. If it was wrong, it was a sin of omission and nothing more. We didn’t want to hurt you. Nanny agreed with your father and me. Her desire was to spend time with you. It never mattered to her if you knew she was your grandmother. She didn’t care that you weren’t so interested in her. That wasn’t important at all. What she wanted was to be with you, to dote on you and give you her time and her love. She had lost her husband, and her son was far away, and you were all she had left.”

Beth tried to absorb the significance of this new reality. The whole time she had been skipping in and out of Nanny’s house—selfishly focused on her own life—Nanny had been gazing at her with the loving, mournful eyes of a bereft grandmother.

“Maybe it wasn’t important to Nanny to tell the truth,” Beth said finally, “but it would have been helpful for me to know who she really was. I might have treated her better. Been nicer. Kinder. Less self-centered. Did that ever occur to any of you coconspirators?”

Jan clenched her jaw for a minute. “Beth, I don’t want to continue with all this hostility. Let’s get back to being mother and daughter, the way we were before.”

“We can’t ever be the way we were before, Mom. Don’t you see that?” Beth opened her purse and took out the stack of photocopies. “Your life may not have changed, but mine sure has. See this person? He wasn’t there, and now he is. I can’t erase him.”

“What are those?” Jan reached for the papers as she had the teapot, but Beth pulled them back. “Where did you get those pictures?”

“I got them from the library. Because I wondered what Thomas Wood looked like.”

“Why? What use is that? You shouldn’t have—”

“Seeing his picture helps me. Now I understand why I don’t have freckles and a pug nose.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake! That is just ridiculous. Your appearance is absolutely unessential to this issue!”

“Wrong, Mother. Now I know why I look the way I do. And I want to understand how he fits into who I am. Mom, I’m not going to stop searching until I’ve found out everything I can about him. Thomas Wood is part of me.”

Jan shook her head. “No, he isn’t. Genetically you’re connected, but that’s it. That’s all there is.”

“That’s a lot.”

“It is not! Freckles and pug noses are nothing. Come over here, and let me remind you who was really a part of you.”

Taking Beth’s arm, the older woman tried to pull her away from the graves of Nancy and Theodore Wood. “Don’t take me to Dad’s plot,” Beth warned, brushing off Jan’s hand. “I know who he was. I loved him, and I called his parents my grandma and grandpa. Now, I want you to tell me who these people were. Nanny and Teddy.”

“You knew Nanny better than I ever did, Beth. Why don’t you tell me who she was?”

Beth brushed some dirt from the top of Nanny’s marble head-stone, then she sank to the ground and crossed her legs. She spread the photographs of Thomas Wood on the grass before her. For a moment, she could hardly remember anything about the old woman who had looked after her when she was a young child. And then it came.

“Nanny was funny,” Beth began. “She had little songs for everything. She made buttered popcorn every afternoon. Our favorite lunch was fish sticks. She gave us lollipops when we won games. Billy used to cheat at Candy Land, and I would catch him and cry. Nanny rocked me in her lap until I fell asleep. She called me Bethy. Bethy-Wethy.”

Closing her eyes, Beth fought tears as she sang the funny little song Nanny had adapted just for her. “My Bethy lies over the ocean, my Bethy lies over the sea. My Bethy lies over the ocean…oh bring back my Bethy to me.”

Jan joined in softly. “Bring back…bring back…oh, bring back my Bethy to me.”

But Beth wasn’t ready to be brought back to her mother—her sense of betrayal was still too strong.

Chapter Five

Just like that, Beth had gone away. As Jan dug a deep hole for the first of the climbing roses she had bought to plant beside the deck of her lake house, she recalled how stunned she had felt that morning at the cemetery. Tears streaming, her daughter had walked away from Nancy Wood’s grave, climbed into the rental car and driven off. Jan had phoned her repeatedly, but Beth refused to answer, letting her voice-mail system pick up the calls and never returning them. Two days later, an e-mail message appeared on Jan’s computer.

I’m back in New York. On my way to Botswana for three weeks starting Monday. Love, Beth.

That was the extent of her daughter’s communication. Jan had phoned the studio apartment in New York, but Beth didn’t return her call. E-mail messages received no reply.

It wasn’t as though she had purposely hurt her daughter, Jan reasoned as she pushed her fingers through the ball of roots beneath the rose’s graft. Loosening the dirt would give the roots room to breathe in their new home. Now that the whole situation with Thomas had unfortunately come to light, she was even making an effort to explain it to Beth. She had sent a pretty “I love you” card with a lovely poem inside, and she had written a lengthy message on the computer in an attempt to make things better and heal the breach between them.

Your birth father and I did care about each other, Jan had typed in finally—after deleting three previous efforts and revising the current one countless times. Thomas was a good man. He was intelligent and kind. But he and I had different goals. He longed to travel, while I planned to stay in Tyler. I never wanted to be far from my family, but Thomas had no desire to work in the Wood nursery business or live close to his mother. He cared about Nanny, and I know he wrote to her, but he did not come back to Tyler often. Even though Thomas and I were friends, we both knew we did not belong together as husband and wife. I hope you can find a way to be grateful that I married John Lowell, Beth. Your father and I were happy in a way that Thomas and I never could have been. In the long run, sweetheart, your childhood was better for this difficult decision, even though you may not believe it.

After much soul-searching, Jan had pressed the send button and released the letter to her daughter. Later, consumed with worry when Beth made no response, Jan had printed it out and read it at least fifty times, checking to make sure she had said exactly what she meant. She didn’t want to hurt Beth further, but she couldn’t condone this futile quest that seemed to have consumed her daughter. The memory of Thomas’s school photographs spread across his mother’s grave still filled Jan with a mixture of shock, grief and anger. Maybe the reminder that Beth’s happy home was a gift from her parents and her grandmother would help ease the hurt she felt over the secret they all had kept.

“Is that a Climbing Peace you’ve got there?”

As she patted dirt around the rosebush she had just planted, Jan recognized the voice of a neighbor who lived four houses down. Pasting on a smile she didn’t feel, she turned and waved to the widower. “It sure is, Jim. You can’t do better than a Peace if you want the perfect rose.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Jim Blevins was walking his dog, a mixed-breed poodle-like creature that had a tendency to roll in nasty things. Jan noticed they were both overweight as they sauntered off the road and started up her drive.

“I’ve got two Peace Roses in my yard,” he said. “A climber and a regular bush rose. But you know what really has me intrigued? Zepherine Drouhin.”

“Gesundheit!” Jan exclaimed, throwing up her hands in mock surprise.

Jim laughed, his blue eyes disappearing into folds of soft skin. “It’s not a sneeze, it’s a rose. I hadn’t heard of the Zepherine Drouhin till last year. Found it at one of the nurseries and planted it next to my front door.”

“Did you like it?”

“Did I like it? The thing turned out to be a stunner. Climbed up nearly ten feet in the first year, if you can believe that. It puts out a dark pink rose, and the canes are almost thornless. Great if you’ve got grandkids around, you know. Of course, mine are nearly grown, but still, it’s a comfort not to have to worry about anyone snagging a sleeve as they go inside the house. Best part is, the Zepherine Drouhin tolerates a little shade, and I’ve got a pin oak near the drive that keeps the sun off the front of my house about half the day.”

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