Tides of the Heart Read Free

about Larchwood Hall. She wrote down the name of Miss Taylor, the housemother, and beneath that added
P.J.
,
Susan, Ginny:
the other girls who had been at the home the same time as Jess and who had given up their babies, too.
    Then she wrote,
Dr. Larribee
, the doctor, and
Bud Wilson
, who was both the sheriff and the postmaster of the small town of Westwood where Larchwood Hall was. They had all known Jess Bates was there. They had all known Jess Bates was pregnant.
    Staring at the paper, Jess let out a long sigh. It was ridiculous to think that any of them would have sent her the letter. They would have no reason to pretend to be the baby she’d given away. They would have nothing to lose.
    Nothing to lose?
She chewed on the end of her pen while another thought crept uneasily into her mind. There was someone else who knew. Someone who had lost a great deal already on account of her baby: his home and his family and his access to Jess’s abundant trust fund. That someone was Charles, her ex-husband. Charles had known, and though he had been only too eager to leave when she’d opened the door, and he had quickly remarried a not surprisingly much younger woman, Jess often wondered how he managed to maintain his facade of grand wealth: she knew he was not the most brilliant investment banker ever born despite what he thought. Or let others think.
    Charles
, she wrote on the paper. Without thinking, she added
Chuck, Maura
, and
Travis.
She’d had to tell the children; she’d wanted them to know the truth. But surely her children would have had nothing to do with this.
    She studied the list that had grown on the paper. But her eyes kept going back to one name, and only one name:
Charles.
She had no idea why he would do this, but it suddenly seemed obvious that it had to be him.
    She balled her hands into fists. A sputter of curses flickedthrough her mind. Then she picked up the phone beside the sofa and dialed the number at his townhouse in Manhattan.
    After two rings, the machine kicked in. “We’re unavailable at present,” his pompous voice said. “We won’t be returning to the city until the tenth of March.”
    Beep.
    Jess hung up. He wouldn’t be home until March tenth? Where could he have gone? Then a sick feeling crawled through her stomach as she wondered if he and his new wife might be winter vacationing on an island—Martha’s Vineyard, for instance.
    Quickly, she picked up the receiver again and called Chuck’s cell phone. If anyone would know the whereabouts of Charles, it would be his favorite son.
    “Hello, honey,” she said, after he’d answered.
    “Mom? Hey, how’s it going?”
    “Fine. Are you keeping busy?”
    Her son laughed. “Life was easier before I became an adult.”
    “I know the feeling.”
    “You want anything special, Mom?”
    She winced at the reminder that she did not speak to him often, and that she never, ever called just to say hi. He had, after all, made it quite clear years ago that he did not want his mother keeping tabs on him. He was so much like Charles; he was so much like her own father had been. It all made her quite sad. “Actually,” she said now, “I was trying to reach your father. I need to speak with him about some tax information.” It was not true, of course, but Chuck would not know that.
    “Dad’s in the Caribbean.”
    The Caribbean? Not Martha’s Vineyard. “What on earth is he doing there?” she asked before remembering it was none of her business. Four years of divorce apparently did not wash away every stain of twenty years of marriage.
    “The last I heard, he was buying a boat.”
    Jess sighed, but did not comment that she wondered if her ex-husband would ever grow up. “Well, okay, honey. Thanks.” Then she added, “I miss you, honey. When can you come out for dinner?”
    “Not for a while, Mom. I’m not in the city right now. I’m at a seminar. In Boston.”
    “Boston?” she asked. “You’re in Boston right now?”
    “Yeah. The