Finding His Way Home

“Hello, Valetta.”

She turned so slowly, her fear so palpable, that Lincoln was pained. He should have warned her, called ahead, not appeared so suddenly as to cause her the unpleasant shock of his unexpected arrival.

The way she stared, her long fingers curling on her daughter’s shoulder… Was her recollection of him all that painful?

Lincoln. Valetta mouthed his name, but no sound came forth. The rush of years fell to the wayside, back to a time when she was young…and helplessly in love.

Not that he had ever known. So much older than she, Lincoln Cameron had never looked her way. He had been more brother than lover. Her heart had paid no attention then.

She prayed it would be more co-operative now.

For Carly

Are we not like the two volumes of one book?

—Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

BARBARA GALE

is a native New Yorker. Married for thirty-five years, she and her husband divide their time between Brooklyn and Hobart, New York.

She loves to hear from readers and responds to all letters. Write to her at PO Box 150792, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0792, USA or visit her website at www.BarbaraGale.com.

Dear Reader,

Owning a cabin in rural New York, I spend many weekends walking country roads. From the dust of summer to the snowdrifts of winter, they never fail me with their beauty. I am often asked if I will ever move upstate permanently, a conversation I frequently have with my husband because the main focus of our lives is bounded by the concrete pavements of New York City. Talk about two ends of a spectrum!

I realise that people move all the time, that America is a Ferris wheel of change, our highways dotted with moving vans. But no matter the state, the city or town, moving from one place to another not only involves a change of venue, but can entail enormous sacrifice and loss. Writing about a wealthy, professional sophisticate who is asked to make this choice was the inevitable outcome of my own thoughtful walks in the woods.

Finding His Way Home is the story of one man’s voyage of discovery. I hope the book gives you pause for thought, and helps in your own discovery that change can be painful, but not without its rewards.

Sincerely,

Barbara Gale

BARBARA GALE

Prologue

Valetta emerged from the bathroom, swiping at her mouth with a terry cloth towel as she fell down onto the bed, not caring one jot if she woke her sleeping husband.

“Feeling better?” Jack asked with a drowsy smile, not bothering to open his eyes as he snaked a hand around his wife’s thickened waist. Pulling Valetta close, he nuzzled her neck while she drew the covers to her chest and sighed.

“Do you think it’s possible to be nauseous for the next nine months? I’ve heard that it happens.”

“Val.” He laughed, burrowing deeper into her side, his brown hair a shaggy swag across his handsome brow. “You’re almost done with the second trimester, so it isn’t going to be nine more months. Three more, actually, from what I remember learning in med school. Yeah, I’m pretty sure you only have three more months to go.”

“What do you know?” she grumbled. “You’re just a doctor.”

“Yeah, but a good one.” He smiled as he sent sleepy, warm kisses over her smooth, bare shoulder.

“And running late, Doctor Faraday,” she said with a quick glance at the clock, “so don’t get too involved.”

“I already am involved,” he murmured as he wrapped his legs around her thighs. “Feel that? That’s involved.”

Valetta smiled against his mouth as he tried to coax her to return his kisses. “Your patients will be lining up at the clinic in about an hour. Don’t you think you should be there to greet them?”

“I can be a few minutes late. Everyone will understand if I say I got sidetracked!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Ten minutes should do it,” he whispered wickedly against her ear.

“Ten minutes?” Valetta shrieked. “As in slam, bam, thank you ma’am?” But her hands were already sliding round his neck.

“Fifteen?” her husband asked, seeing how his mouthy kisses were beginning to take effect. “God, how I love you, Val,” he breathed against her soft, downy cheek. “Shoot, honey, you can take twenty minutes, if you like.”

The rest of Jack’s words were lost as he tunneled his fingers through Valetta’s copper curls and pressed his mouth to hers. The swish of linen sheets was the only sound in their bedroom for some time until the sighs of their mutual pleasure surfaced and they collapsed in a giggling heap. Too soon, Valetta felt her husband give her bottom a playful pat, felt cool air hit her as he pulled back the covers and scooted from bed.

“Mrs. Faraday, that was the best slam dunk I’ve had in…um…a day.” Jack winked as he leaned across the bed to give his wife a quick kiss. “You can play basketball with me anytime.”

“I’ll file that invitation for future reference,” she promised as she snuggled beneath the covers. “Meanwhile, should I make you some coffee?”

“Gee, would you?” he teased as he headed for the bathroom, knowing full well she wasn’t going anywhere.

Valetta smiled as she heard the shower begin to run, knowing she would be in for a song. Moments later, she heard her husband begin to sing his favorite aria, “Il Pagliacci.” Feeling the baby kick, she wondered whether it was a sign of enjoyment, or a complaint at the disturbance.

“Holy cow, look how late I am!” Jack laughed as he emerged minutes later, toweling his wet hair in a rush of steam.

Valetta peeked from the comfort of her toasty-warm blankets. It was pure theater to watch him rummage through the bureau drawer for a clean T-shirt, shove his long legs into a pair of gray cords, then knot a tie that had nothing to do with his outfit. Today he chose the one of Miss Piggy dancing with Kermit, because it was children’s day at the clinic, and Jack knew it would make the kids laugh.

“Hey there, sleepyhead, are we still meeting the Carmichaels for dinner tonight?”

Sliding up against the pillows, Valetta stretched. “If you can manage it.”

“I can manage it. I have a staff meeting around three, so unless there’s an emergency, I should easily make it there by seven,” he said, bending to give her a goodbye kiss.

The way her eyes twinkled, Jack knew that Valetta was thinking about the last time they made plans to meet. The night little Terry Muldrow interrupted their plans when he decided to sneak a ride on his dad’s new chestnut, at the cost of a broken collarbone. “Kids do the darndest things.” He grinned with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“I can’t wait to see.”

“Well, at least you’ll have a doctor in the house.”

“What a relief to know! I would throw a pillow at you, but I’m too comfy to move.”

“And I would crawl back into bed with you,” Jack replied, his eyes warm as they lingered over his pretty wife, “but someone here has to put food on the table. You writers don’t make all that much.”

“You sound like a Neanderthal, Jack. Marry me, sweetie, and I’ll keep you in steak the rest of your life.”

“Hey lady, that’s a good deal these days, considering the economy.” Shrugging into a well-worn tweed jacket, Jack checked his appearance one last time. “But since filet mignon is probably around twenty dollars a pound, princess, could we please stick to hamburgers until I pay off my student loans?”

“Better yet, how about tofu burgers? So much healthier, don’t you think, Doc?”

“As a Neanderthal, I have my limitations,” Jack protested as he grabbed his keys and wallet. “And a tofu burger is high on that list.”

“About as high as your cholesterol?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my cholesterol that would warrant a tofu burger!” he teased as he waved goodbye.

Jack’s step was light as he took the stairs, his early-morning energy always astonishing to Valetta. She was the total opposite, in that way. She would much rather stay in bed the extra hour or two and linger late at the end of the day to finish her chores. Jack preferred to call it an early night and crawl into bed with a good murder mystery. It came as no surprise when he began reading Patricia Cornwall last summer, for the second time. Patiently, Jack had explained to his wife that not only was Cornwall a fabulous read, but that as a doctor, he was dying—no pun intended—to catch the heroine- doctor in a medical mistake. That he probably never would was unimportant. It was the journey that counted.

Oh, Jack, she sighed, a wifely, loving sigh of pained tolerance as she eyed the overflowing stack of books on the floor and made a mental note to buy him a bookcase for Father’s Day.

“I love you!” she heard him call as he slammed shut the front door.

“Love you, too!”

Even though the bedroom windows were shut tight against the February cold, she could hear him start to warm up the car. The seven-year-old Ford needed the extra time. In her mind’s eye, she saw him put the car into reverse and carefully back out of the driveway. He was meticulous about that, knowing that kids didn’t always bother to watch as they raced down the road on their skateboards and bikes. Not that they’d be biking this cold April day, not after the snowstorm that had covered the area in four inches of white fluff, unexpected but not unheard of in the Adirondack region.

At seven in the morning, no one was about except the salt spreader. From the safety of her warm bed, she heard her husband shout out good morning to the driver, Ned Pickens, no doubt, the only person in Longacre who seemed to know how to attach the massive snowplow to the town pickup. Good old Ned Pickens, she thought as she fell back to sleep.

Valetta began her day pretty much as she had the last six months of a difficult pregnancy, but she hoped that since she’d made it this far, she and the baby could get through the rest without greater complications. One more month and they would be in the homestretch. It was her good fortune to be able to put her feet up, since Jack was a generous and caring husband. Not that they lived grandly or ever would. They had no aspirations that way. He was a country doctor, she was a country wife, and the arrangement suited them both. Even better, deeply in love, they were about to begin their family.

Valetta slept till almost ten and then enjoyed a leisurely bath. After a light breakfast, she booted up her PC. Unable to sit for long periods of time, but not wanting to feel a total slug, she had been determined to continue her freelance writing. Hence the article she had written the day before for a local newsy. Of necessity, she had cut down her hours drastically, but she was still proud of the money she was earning, even if it wasn’t much. She thought, too, that Jack was secretly pleased to introduce his wife, the writer, as if she were on the verge of winning the Pulitzer prize. Darling Jack, she thought, with a rueful shake of her head.

Hey, Mrs. Faraday, how about a little less time mooning over Jack, and a little bit more for this article, she laughed to herself. No one was going to pay her to daydream about her husband.

The afternoon flew by and before Valetta knew, it was six-thirty and time to make the short drive into town. Longacre was one of the many small towns clustered along a narrow ridge of the Adirondack Mountains, a range once as high as the Himalayas. They lived on a dirt road just outside of town, so the trip wasn’t all that far. Dragging on her boots, she slipped into her heavy sheepskin jacket and gathered up her belongings. The shiny new pickup parked on their driveway was Jack Faraday’s one big splurge, his gift to Valetta. Safe as houses, Jack had insisted when he campaigned for the purchase, even though Valetta insisted they couldn’t afford it. But Jack had argued—loudly—that she needed something trustworthy to drive. But what about him? He drove the mountains far more than she, on his rounds and during emergencies. But Jack had dug in his heels. This was one matter he wasn’t going to negotiate. He didn’t want to worry about his wife and child driving alone on the back roads. Valetta had capitulated, and given the way the roads were tonight, treacherous sheets of ice in spite of the morning’s salting, she was glad of the heavy wheels beneath her.

She made the drive with ease, pulling up in front of Crater’s Diner just in time to see her friends arrive. She slid from her truck and they entered the restaurant together, laughing and taking bets on how late Doc Jack would be.

Not tonight, Valetta grinned. He’d promised.

Oh, but hadn’t she heard? There’d been a spinout on Route 10, a three-car pileup on some black ice, and serious injuries. Very serious, according to the radio announcer. Jack would have been called to attend, no question. He was the closest doctor available. Perhaps they’d better go ahead and order, Patty suggested as they settled into a booth. Valetta could order some hot soup for Jack, maybe the corn chowder, hot and sweet and creamy, just the way he liked it. It would be cold work out there on the road, patching up the injured, and he would appreciate the thought.

Jerome Crater’s diner would have been a landmark restaurant in any other city. In Longacre, it was a combination restaurant, town hall and bully pulpit for anyone who had a mind to speak. Valetta enjoyed many dinners there, and many a conversation over a cup of coffee. Jerome Crater had a warm spot for the skinny redhead, as he liked to call Valetta, and treated her like the daughter he’d never had. The bottom line was Valetta was Phyla Imre’s niece. Since Phyla had lived in Longacre her entire ninety years, right up until the day she died, Valetta had been gathered into the fold, no questions asked, even though she had only moved there a few years ago. The fact that she had stayed on after Phyla died, and chose to remain living in Phyla’s house, also worked in her favor.

And then, marrying Jack Faraday, their favorite son! That was icing on the cake! The whole town had been invited to the wedding, and Jerome had even baked the cake, a frosted tower of lemon curd and vanilla icing that still had everyone talking. So, if the lady wanted to order an extra large serving of corn chowder for the absentee doctor, so be it. Jerome served it with nary a grumble in a covered tureen, to keep it warm until Jack arrived.

“Feeling the baby?” Jerome asked as he set the chowder down.

Valetta smiled patiently. Ever since Phyla died last summer, Jerome had been acting like a mother hen, and the pregnancy had doubled his concern. “Everything’s fine, Jerome,” she promised.

“Just checking. Hey, I came up with a name you might be interested in. Sort of like a song.”

Flicking his napkin onto his lap, Chuck Carmichael smiled. “You running a contest, Val?”

“Hush now, Chuck. Go on, Jerome, let’s hear it. You’ve had some good ideas.”

Sending Chuck a scornful look, Jerome made his announcement. “Mellie!” he said proudly.

“Mellie.” Patty Carmichael ran the name around her tongue. “Mellie. Hmm, you know, Val, I kind of like it. It has a certain ring to it. Odd, though. Where’d you dig it up, Jerome?”

Valetta only half listened as Jerome and Chuck and Patty discussed this latest suggestion, busy as she was spreading a slice of Jerome’s famous sourdough bread with half a pound of butter. These days, if she wasn’t nauseous, she was hungry, but Jack said not to mind the calories, she was too skinny as it was, and she cheerfully took him at his word. She was buttering her second slice when the door swung wide, as wide as her radiant smile when she spotted a familiar man enter the diner, his black wool hat covered with new-fallen snow.

“Hey, Faraday,” she called with a sigh of relief. “Over here.”

Hood pulled low, his parka snow speckled, he looked like a veritable snowman. But standing at the diner door to shake free of the snow, he made no move to greet her. Something about the way his hands toyed with his hat…

Why, it wasn’t Jack at all! It was Ned Pickens, his eyes bloodshot and bleary. Carefully, quietly, Valetta placed her spoon on the table, cast her heavily lashed, gray eyes down and folded her hands. Ned’s footsteps were heavy as he approached the booth, his long shadow enveloping her like a shroud. He was so close she could smell the wet wool of his parka, but steadfastly, she refused to meet his eyes. If she didn’t, she would not have to listen to the terrible news she knew he had come to deliver. Something about an accident… black ice…Jack’s car…

No, she thought, floating somewhere above the maelstrom, somewhere she would not have to listen to Ned’s dreadful sobs, not have to measure a grief that would never know a yardstick, not hear the absolute silence of the diner, not hear the sound of time standing still.

Oh, Jack. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. We had a story to tell, a child to raise, an old age to share.

Oh, Jack, she thought, the air suddenly stifling, her head whirling as the weight of her bleak future bore down on her, and bore her down.

Oh, Jack, I loved you so much!

Chapter One

Nine Years Later

He felt, as he turned the handle, that all things strange and wonderful lay behind the door. That by crossing the threshold, he would be leaving the familiar and true, begin marching down a road from which he would not return. So whimsical, and so unlike him, but he knew what he felt and it was uncomfortable, a faint prickling at the back of his neck that would not be ignored. Maybe it was the peremptory way he’d been summoned, but when he turned the brass handle, a thing he’d done a thousand times before, its carved impress seemed suddenly cold and oily beneath his palm.

The heavy, ornate mahogany door opened onto a blaze of sunlight that rendered him temporarily blind. He was used to that, too, and took a moment to adjust his eyes. He knew she did it on purpose, set her massive antique desk just that way against a bank of windows, to impress people, to send the not-so-subtle message that her visitor was entering holy ground. Hence her refusal to hang venetians, shades, or even a curtain, not even on the sunniest day, and it could be very sunny in Los Angeles. Even the air-conditioned penthouse floor of the Keane Tower, where the publisher of the world’s largest newspaper, the L.A. Connection, presided, was not immune to the solar glare. But Alexis Keane was a stubborn woman.

When his eyes adjusted, he crossed the few yards to the desk where she was huddled, his footsteps muffled by the thick Aubusson carpet that spanned the room. Dwarfed by the huge stack of newspapers that were delivered every day, from every part of the country that counted, Alexis Keane appeared to be so involved in her reading that she didn’t hear him enter. She liked to say that although she might not read every line, no one could fault her for not being on top of the news. But that was her job, the only thing she lived for, and she did it well, as everyone knew.

The sun blazing in through her huge picture window created the effect of a halo to enhance her even more. At least, he assumed, that’s what she hoped. If only Alexis knew, he thought, as he coughed lightly, it made her look small and gnomelike. But damned if he was going to tell her. There were many things he would not tell her—had not told her—over the two decades they had worked together. And there were things she did not want him to tell her. There were moments when a person in her position needed to be able to say I didn’t know, and he accommodated her.

Right now, though, the small, beady brown eyes he had tracked for twenty years suddenly seemed unfamiliar. They were wary when they had no reason to be. The world was quiet this morning—no battles, no 19, no mysterious outbreak of disease—and everyone in the news business knew that sometimes no news really was good news, that sometimes it was all right for the newsroom to sit back and relax for a few hours. It wouldn’t last. So he was surprised to detect the flash of worry on her face, fleeting and gone in an instant. But he was not mistaken. She paid him well not to make those sorts of mistakes.

“Lincoln.”

Her greeting was curt, aimed at the chair he stood beside, rather than his face.

Lincoln Cameron sat, his legs hooked at the knees, his long body unsuited to even the largest leather conference chair.

“Alexis.”

His salute was brief. He waited quietly while she shifted the newspapers into various sundry piles.

“You need a shave,” she said, taking note of his heavy beard.

Lincoln rubbed his cheeks with his big, bony hand. “Then I guess it’s five o’clock,” he said with a faint smile.

She was buying time. Fine. He’d seen her do it before, when the news was bad. But her voice, gravelly and low, seemed to factor newly to his ears. He’d heard rumors…and had treated them as such. The office grapevine was a phenomenon to be scrupulously ignored, but suddenly he wondered if there wasn’t some truth to the rumors. Now he was sitting there observing the sickly green hue of her skin, the sallow yellow tinge of her watery eyes as they avoided his, the simple fact that she did not rise to greet him when she was known for her impeccable manners…. He watched as she shook her head, amused as she looked him over.

“Another custom-made Armani?”

Lincoln glanced down at his dark blue suit, then back at his boss. “Did you really call me in to discuss my sartorial splendor?”

“Well, thank goodness you didn’t tell me I was looking well,” she snorted.

“Is something wrong, then?”

Alexis seemed to find his question amusing. “I’m one of the richest women in the world, and one of the most powerful. What could possibly be wrong?”

Hearing the telltale thread of anger beneath her words, he opted not to answer, but a chill foreboding traveled up his spine.

“And you,” she stabbed the air for emphasis with an exquisitely polished nail, “as my executive editor and one of the most powerful men in the newspaper industry, you would be the first to know, wouldn’t you? I would hope so, in any case, since I’m the one who tutored you. Everything you are is because of me, isn’t it, Lincoln? The White House reads every damned editorial you write, even the lousy ones, before we even go to press. And I damned well know you have the president’s ear, since I myself gave him your private number.”

Lincoln smiled—the deep lines carved along his gaunt cheeks told he was smiling—but his black eyes were cold. It was unusual for her to wave her flag. “I often wish you hadn’t. That man calls me at the most ungodly hours.”

Alexis smiled, knowing he was angry, and perversely pleased. “Puts pause to your private life, does he?” she chuckled, although Lincoln heard it transform into a cough.