Milagro For Miranda (Book Three Oregon In Love) Page 4

  He didn’t appreciate the irony.

  Spencer got up and walked across the room. He kneeled down and pressed a few numbers on the keypad just to see if he could figure out the code; his father’s birth date, his mother’s, his own.

  Nothing.

  Grimacing from his awkward position, he gripped the edge of the cabinet and rose to his feet. He leaned his head against the wall for a moment, discouraged at the new wave of pain in his leg. While he waited for the ache to ebb, he glanced behind the cabinet.

  A shiny rectangle caught his eye. Spencer caught his breath. A photograph!

  It lay wedged between the leg of the cabinet and the base trim. He remembered Miranda accidentally dropping the files to the floor. This must’ve slipped out. Ignoring the discomfort, Spencer slid his arm through the narrow space and grabbed it. His hand shook as he brought it out into the light.

  A black and white image of a man and a woman in an extremely intimate embrace seared his brain. The man was older, but someone he couldn’t place. A friend of my father’s? The woman’s face was in shadows and a little blurry, as if she’d moved at the instant the picture was taken. She appeared younger than the man and had short, dark hair. Spencer’s gaze bored into the grainy flecks of the image, trying to determine if the woman was Miranda.

  What had she said? That she wasn’t the only one being blackmailed? It could be anyone. His stomach turned at the implications. Regardless of the woman’s identity, one thing was true. His father had pictures of a sensitive nature that he kept locked up. That wasn’t the action of an innocent man.

  A low rumble brought him out of his reverie. The garage door.

  His parents were home early.

  Spencer blew out a breath and crammed the photo into his pants pocket. He headed toward the kitchen feeling caught in a nightmare. The details of the house became etched in his brain, as if this was the last time he’d see it in innocence; the line of family portraits in the hall, the Winslow Homer framed watercolor print he’d bought for his mother, the ceramic handprint on the wall, made when he was a toddler. His heart roared in his ears, drowning out the sounds of his footsteps.

  In the kitchen, the sunlight filtered through the mini blinds on the kitchen window, casting the room in a soft glow, adding a gentle shine to the tiled countertops. Oranges piled in a heavy ceramic bowl on the counter wafted a light scent around the room. A row of terra cotta pots lined the windowsill, foaming with the delicate greenery of his mother’s fresh herb collection. Colorful plates gleamed from a decorative plate rack on the wall.

  Everything was pleasing on the surface. How had something so ugly, so insidious entered his life?

  Nerves tingled along the surface of his skin. Spencer stared at the white rectangle of the door to the garage, wondering what would change when his parents walked through it. He leaned against the counter for support, aware of a muscle jumping in his jaw.

  Spencer closed his eyes. He suddenly had a sick feeling that somehow everything Miranda had told him was true.

  ***

  Miranda unlocked her front door. She entered and called out to her mother. As she wriggled out of her coat and tossed it onto the back of a chair, she felt the tension between her shoulder blades ease a little. It had been difficult getting a hold of medication for her mother’s cough, but now she had it and that was a profound relief.

  Her mind strayed in Spencer’s direction. It had been a week since that horrible night. Miranda jerked her thoughts back to the present. There was no use obsessing over a situation she couldn’t change. Dealing with the present, forgetting the past, and ignoring the future was a survival mechanism. If she’d heard nothing from Spencer or his father so far, then perhaps he’d chosen to forget the incident. With a suffocating fervor, she hoped so.

  “Mamá?” Miranda pulled the bottle of pills out from her purse. She read the words on the side: Federal law prohibits dispensing without prescription. She shook her head. Just add this to the list of my many sins. How else could she get the antibiotics her mother needed? Lupe refused to go to a clinic for care, terrified that she’d be turned in to the INS. No arguments to the contrary moved her. Aside from physical force, Miranda could think of no way to convince her mother to seek appropriate medical care. She’d had to consider alternatives.

  Miranda knew of a young Hispanic woman in the nursing program at a nearby community college. With her stethoscope, the woman had confirmed Miranda’s suspicions that Lupe had pneumonia, and had obtained antibiotics for her. The fact that the gray and yellow capsules looked exactly like antibiotics Miranda had taken a short time ago for a sinus infection reassured her somewhat.

  The small Hispanic society she found herself a part of worked together to support each other in such times. There had been no request of payment, only assurances that the medication would help. It was either this, or buying over-the-counter antibiotics from a pet store. The irony was that in Mexico, she could easily get the medication her mother needed—without a prescription.

  Miranda went into the kitchen for a glass of water so Lupe could take her first dose. She went into her mother’s bedroom, finding her asleep on top of the covers.

  She set the cup and pills on the nightstand next to the bed. “Mamá,” she whispered in Spanish. “Wake up. I have medicine for you.”

  When Lupe didn’t respond, she reached out and touched her arm.

  Miranda jerked her hand away. She backed up across the room until she bumped into the wall.

  No!

  Six

  The door in the kitchen swung open. The moment took on an unreal quality, as though Spencer peered through the wrong end of a telescope.

  His mother, Elizabeth, strode into the kitchen and plopped her purse on the counter. She wore a stylish pantsuit covered by a light jacket. Her silvery blonde hair was cut in a crisp bob. Everything about her emitted elegance and grace. Her face lit up with a smile when she saw him.

  “Spencer! How are you?” She wrapped him in a hug.

  Spencer held onto her for a moment longer than usual, inhaling the familiar flowery scent of her favorite perfume. When she pulled away, she stared up at him with a searching expression in her blue eyes.

  “You seem a little pale. Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” he said. If you only knew. He took a deep breath. “You’re home early.”

  “Your father wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to skip the last part of the tour and return home.” She placed a cool hand on his forehead. “Maybe you and he are suffering from the same thing.”

  The photograph seemed to drag in his pocket. “No chance.”

  His mother furrowed her brows. Spencer cursed his stiff manner and lowered his gaze. “I feel fine.”

  Past her, his pulse pounding, he watched his father come through the door. Spencer stared hard at the older man, trying to discern his secrets from a distance.

  His father saw him and smiled. Did that smile seemed forced? George Meyers walked to him and shook his hand. Spencer controlled himself with an effort to not snatch his hand away. Thoughts of what his father might be, what he might’ve done, nauseated him.

  Averting his gaze, he glanced at the kitchen clock, which continued to beat out the time, rushing him toward a future he didn’t want to face.

  “Hello, son. Stay out of trouble while we were gone? Any wild parties?”

  The sound of his jovial tone grated on Spencer’s nerves. Maybe he should consider observing his father for a few hours or days, to pick up any hints of a depraved side. He dismissed the notion.

  I have to know. Now.

  Spencer looked at his father. “I need to talk to you.”

  His mother put a hand on his arm. “Is anything wrong?”

  Spencer wished he could sound comforting to avoid worrying his mother, but every fiber of his being shrank from facts he now feared were true.

  His father passed by him, his features blank. “In the study.”

  Avoiding his mother’s
anxious gaze, Spencer followed his father to the study. When the door had snapped closed behind them, his father went around the desk and sat down. He shuffled some papers, as if trying to appear busy.

  “I hope that secretary of mine didn’t slack in my absence. You know how those kinds of women are.”

  Spencer stood in front of the desk, with his hands in his pockets. His fingers brushed against the photograph. He resisted the urge to crumple it into a ball. “What kind of woman would that be?”

  His father chuckled, giving him a wink. “Good to look at, but not a lot upstairs.”

  All of Spencer’s opening remarks were forgotten in a rush of emotion he couldn’t name. He pulled his hands from his pockets. “How could you? You’re a deacon at church. How could you do this to Mom?”

  George leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed and wary, and stared at Spencer for the space of several heartbeats.

  “You want to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Miranda Adams.”

  Spencer waited in vain for a puzzled, innocent look to cross his father’s features. Instead, he discerned a deepening of color in the older man’s face.

  Guilty, guilty, guilty! Spencer balled his hands into fists.

  George toyed with a pen. “What did she tell you?”

  “Everything.”

  He saw his father’s eyes flash toward the liquor cabinet. Moisture appeared on the older man’s forehead. He leaned back in his chair. “And you believe what she told you? You believe her over your own father?”

  “You haven’t told me anything yet.”

  His father’s face took on a mottled appearance. “You want her for yourself? Is that what this is about? Otherwise, I don’t see how it concerns you.”

  Spencer recoiled, feeling blood heat his face. “How could you say such a thing?”

  George laughed. “Sounds like she told you some highly fanciful and exaggerated tale to gain your sympathy. She’s a big girl. She knows very well what she’s involving herself in.”

  Spencer felt a vein throb in his forehead. “She didn’t have a choice, and you know it. You’re attempting to blackmail her into a relationship.”

  He shook his head. “No one’s blackmailing anybody. Apparently she’s gulled you with her big blue eyes and winsome ways. It’s all an act. It always is with her kind. She’d do anything for money.”

  “Do you hear what you’re saying? It makes me sick!”

  A mulish look appeared on his father’s face. “If Miranda Adams talks, she faces real consequences. I’ll fire her for a start. Did she tell you about that illegal alien she calls her mother? If anyone has something to hide, it’s her.”

  Spencer’s anger drained away in a wave of sudden weariness. Stomach roiling, he backed up and sank onto the chair from where he’d watched Miranda climb in the window. His father was in a state of denial. There was no reasoning with him.

  “How can you live with yourself?”

  George stood up and grabbed the back of the desk chair. “You have no idea of the pressures I’m under to provide this kind of living for you and your mother-”

  Spencer shook his head, appalled at the ridiculous excuse. “What are you talking about? I’ve been on my own for twelve years, and Mom’s not hung up on appearances. Besides, what has that got to do with your secretary?”

  Spencer watched as his father went to the liquor cabinet and opened it. After a moment of fumbling inside, he stood and turned, his face a muddy color. “If you say anything to your mother about this,” he panted, “I’ll disown you.”

  Spencer looked away, unable to stand the sight of his stalwart of a father replaced by a diminished man with a furtive, cunning, guilty look on his face.

  His shoulders sagged. “Your threats don’t mean anything to me.” Spencer stood up and left the room, his mind reeling. It was one thing to suspect the worst, but quite another to have his nose rubbed in the reality.

  Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, Spencer ascended the stairs. How could he ever look at his father again? How could an apparently good man turn so bad? What had happened to his family?

  Everything I believed is a sham.

  In his room, he yanked open the dresser drawers and pulled out his clothes, tossing them onto the bed. Far from a refuge, his family home now represented a place of vice and disillusionment. If he couldn’t get the tenant out of his condo right away, he’d find a new place to live. He refused to spend one more night in this house.

  Spencer opened the closet and unhooked the entire contents from the rack, throwing it on top of everything else on the bed. He tasted bile in his throat whenever he thought of what his own father meant to do to a young woman in his employ.

  Finally, mental and emotional exhaustion overtook him. He sank onto the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands, aware of the dull pain in his thigh. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the blood pounding in his veins.

  Spencer tried to pray but the words dried up on his tongue. A spasm of fury toward Miranda for being the one to shatter his world gripped him. In the next moment, it evaporated on a sigh. Without her, I would’ve continued to live a lie—a lie that says my life and family are ideal, an example to a wayward world.

  A creaking floorboard interrupted the spiral of his thoughts. He brought his head up with a snap.

  His mother stood in the doorway, a hesitant smile on her pretty, lined face. She walked into the room and sat next to him. After gazing at him for a long moment, she put a hand above his knee, over the wound concealed beneath his slacks.

  “I’m sorry you’re leaving so soon. We’ve barely had time to talk since you returned from England.”

  Spencer regarded her with pity, unsure of what to say. What would his mother do if she knew the truth? His heart broke for her. “I had planned on going back to my condo soon anyway.”

  She took his hand in hers and looked up at him with a solemn expression. “Spencer, I listened at the study door.”

  His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. What could he say? He knew he couldn’t lie. He wouldn’t cover up his father’s dirty secrets.

  His mother squeezed his hand. “It’s nothing new, you know. Your father’s unfaithfulness.”

  Her words hit him like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. He blinked, dazed. “You know?”

  She nodded. “I’ve known for a long time of his… weakness.”

  “Weakness!” Spencer stood, tugging his hand free. “Pack your bags, Mom. You’re coming with me.”

  She gave a small shake of her head. After a moment, Spencer sank beside her, struggling to rein in his mounting rage. “You don’t have to stay and put up with this,” he said in a low voice. “Leave him. He isn’t the least bit sorry.”

  She reached out to stroke his hair. “You may find this hard to believe, but in my own way, I love your father. I knew what he was a few years after I married him.”

  “I don’t understand. Why stay? Why put up with it?”

  She rested her palm against his cheek. “Simple. I had you.”

  Spencer shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”

  “As a single parent, I would’ve had nothing to offer you but hardship. I stayed with your father to provide a kind of life for you that I could never provide for on my own.”

  He leaned away, struggling to keep the horror he felt from appearing on his face. “I never would’ve expected such a thing.” You can’t blame this on me!

  “I don’t think you can understand unless you’re a parent yourself. I considered it a sacrifice to give you a good life.”

  “A life based on a lie!”

  A tide of color swept into his mother’s cheeks. “Like I said, someday, when you have children of your own, you’ll understand—”

  “No!” He looked away, unable to bear the thought of what she’d endured. He rose to his feet and resumed packing, angry at the way his hands shook.

  She stood
and put her arms around his waist. Revulsion and shock warred with his deep love for his mother. Spencer dropped the bag he’d pulled from the closet, and hugged her hard. She seemed too small to walk the path she insisted on taking. How could she tolerate it? “You have a home with me whenever you want,” he whispered. “Do you understand that?”

  She released him. “Yes. Thank you.”

  He closed his eyes against a wave of pain. When he opened them, she was gone.

  Spencer shoved everything he could fit into the suitcases. He flinched against the full impact of what his family represented. He tried not to think of the youthful hero worship he’d had of his father, of his pride that his parents were still married when everyone he knew had parents whose marriages had crumbled.

  And his mother! He couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain she must be experiencing. The betrayal, the heartbreak—the convoluted thinking that kept her tied to a philanderer.

  Spencer’s vicious feelings toward his father alarmed him. He had to get out of the house. Maybe, just maybe, now that his father had been confronted, he’d be forced to deal with his sins. Spencer resisted the impulse to personally force him with his fists. As he lugged his baggage out into the hall, the realization that Miranda had been spared the worst eased some of his anger.

  After exiting the house, he tossed his bags into his car and started the engine, impatient with the slow ascent of the garage door. Once he had clearance, he gunned the engine and shot backwards out of the drive.

  I have to see Miranda.

  He vaguely remembered her address, but the first time he drove there had been through a haze of fury and pain. Not so different from now. The irony didn’t please him.

  After an hour of wrong turns and backtracking, he pulled up in front of her house. Spencer swung out of the car and banged on the front door. While he caught his breath, he once again noticed the neglected air of the neighborhood, the oily rainbow puddles in the street, and the sound of rap music nearby. Miranda couldn’t stay here. Somehow he’d find someplace better for her and her mother.