Tell Me Your Secrets...

Instead of four or five courses, Elena and another woman had carried in platters heaped with rare roast beef, chicken in a delicate lemon caper sauce and bowls of salads, grilled vegetables and warm bread. I’d eaten in self-defense because I couldn’t very well talk when my mouth was full, could I? Beatrice, who sat to my left, for the most part ignored me and played the gracious hostess, making sure that the meal unfolded smoothly.

Austin was drinking quite a bit. He would have had even more if Beatrice hadn’t signaled one of the servants to stop refilling his wineglass. She done it in such a subtle and smooth way that I assumed it was something she’d had to do frequently in the past. My cousin still wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he resented my presence, and he hadn’t said a word to me all during dinner. Marcie tried to compensate for his behavior by inviting me to go riding with them the following afternoon. She and Austin were sure that I would want to reacquaint myself with my horse, Lace Ribbons.

Because I felt a bit sorry for her, I might have agreed anyway, but Doc Carter said, “I think that would be a good idea, Cameron. You love riding. The more you familiarize yourself with Cameron’s routines, the quicker your memory might come back.”

“Fine.” I aimed a smile in Marcie’s direction. But I couldn’t help feeling that I was being maneuvered by her just as surely as James had maneuvered me earlier. I promised myself that I would get away from all of them in the morning and do a little exploring on my own.

Then because I had Dr. Carter’s attention for the moment, I said, “I’m trying to get a feel for what my last day here was like—I mean before I left. Do you remember seeing me that day? Did we talk?”

Dr. Carter studied me for a moment. “That’s good. I think it might be a very good idea to try and put together that day.”

“Did you see me? Were you here that day?”

He shook his head. “If I remember correctly, it was a Monday, and I spent the day in my backyard working on my putting. Since I retired, I had a putting green put in, and if the weather permits, I’m out there every day. Golf has become my obsession since my wife passed away. But I did walk over here in the late afternoon to check on James, of course. And we had our usual chess game.” He smiled at me. “And if I played the way I usually do, I probably lost. Does that help at all?”

“No.” I could give Pepper the information, but if Doc Carter lived alone, it meant that he didn’t have an alibi. Not that I could believe that Santa Claus could have had something to do with my sister’s disappearance.

He patted my hand. “Patience. Your memory will return when you least expect it.”

Sloan. The moment that Doc Carter turned away, I cut a piece of roast beef off and pushed it around my plate. The evening would have been stressful enough anyway, but my reaction to Sloan’s kiss had made it even more so because I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

I shouldn’t have allowed it to happen. I could have prevented it. But all the should haves and could haves didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t followed my plan to steer clear of Sloan Campbell. Now I was in trouble, and I had a hunch that it was going to get worse.

The good news was that he’d been seated at the far end of the table from me with James, the Bolands and the Radcliffs. I understood the strategy of the arrangement. Sloan was able to finally spend some time with clients, and I was isolated from them, surrounded by family and projecting an image of normalcy.

But that hadn’t made it any easier to digest my food. I sliced off another piece of roast beef and rearranged its position on my plate.

The dining room walls were an ochre color and paintings by the same artist whose work had been displayed in the main parlor also hung here. There was something about the stark simplicity of them that appealed to me.

“Do you know who the artist is?” I asked Doc Carter.

He gave me a searching look. Of all the people in my immediate vicinity, I liked him the best. There was an easy geniality about him, a kindness in his eyes, and not once during the meal had he pressed me about my memory loss, other than to suggest I go riding with Marcie and Austin.

“Do they look at all familiar?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I assume they’re scenes of the ranch.”

“They are. Your mother painted all of them,” he said.

My mother. He had to be talking about James’s second wife, Elizabeth. My gaze returned to the painting that hung on the wall above Beatrice’s head. It was a landscape that must have been painted from one of the bluffs where I’d stood earlier in the day to get my bird’s-eye view of the hacienda.

I recalled my earlier suspicion that James had passed Cameron off as his biological daughter. Had my sister been kept just as ignorant of her real background as I had been? The possibility stirred something inside of me. Did we have more in common than I’d thought?

I turned to Doc Carter intending to find out more information about my mother, but he was talking to Jane Radcliff.

“Elizabeth was a very talented painter.”

I turned to Beatrice. It was the first she’d spoken to me since we’d sat down at the table. Not that she’d spoken much more to Marcie and Austin. She was a quiet, self-contained woman.

“Did she ever sell any of them?” I asked.

“If she hadn’t passed away, Elizabeth would have had a show in a gallery in San Francisco,” Beatrice said. “It was all arranged, but after her death, James canceled the show. He couldn’t bear to part with any of her work.”

“What did she…my mother die of?” I asked.

There was a beat of silence, then Beatrice replied, her voice even softer, “After she and James returned from Europe with you, she began to have frequent bouts of illness and depression. Each one left her weaker than the last. The doctors couldn’t seem to find anything wrong with her.”

“It sounds like postpartum depression.” We’d just run a story line on Secrets in which one of the lead ingenues had nearly killed her child. “It could have been treated.”

“It was. Doc Carter tried everything,” Beatrice assured me. “Your father spared no expense, and for a while, the drugs seemed to work. She even began painting again.”

Whatever else she might have told me was forestalled by James, who tapped on his wineglass until he had everyone’s attention. “We’ll have coffee and after-dinner drinks in the parlor. I have an important announcement to make.”

I rose and followed the procession that was making its way back to the parlor. But as soon as I stepped into the hallway, Hal Linton, who hadn’t spoken a word to me during dinner, took my hand and turned me around to face him.

“I have to speak with you in private,” he said.

I’d thought that Beatrice was behind us, but over Hal’s shoulder, I saw that she was headed down the hallway in the opposite direction. A quick glance over my own shoulder told me that Austin and Marcie had already entered the parlor leaving Hal and me alone.

As Hal drew me into an alcove, I had the distinct impression that I had been manipulated again. And I was getting tired of it.

Hal raised my hand and pressed his lips to it. “I’ve missed you. When can I see you?”

I tried to draw my hand away, but he tightened his grip. “You’re seeing me right now.”

He studied me intently. “I need to see you alone. You can’t have forgotten what happened between us the night before you left.”

The implication of what he was saying had my head spinning. What had been my sister’s relationship with this man?

“I’ve been so worried about you. When you disappeared so abruptly, I thought he’d gone into a jealous rage and done something to you.”

A sliver of ice worked its way up my spine. This time I managed to get my hand free. “What are you talking about?”

“Sloan. He’s incredibly possessive of you, and he discovered us in the garden that night. We were kissing, and he demanded that you go with him. Everyone knew that you quarreled. And he has a terrible temper.” He had his hands on my shoulders and was drawing me closer. “Do you know what it’s been like for me, worrying about you for weeks? And then tonight, seeing you come into the parlor, sitting across from you at the table and not being able to touch you. Please—”

“No.” I put my hands on Hal’s chest and gave him a shove that sent him back against the wall of the alcove.

Behind me came Sloan’s even tone. “James is waiting for you, Cameron.”

My legs felt like rubber as I turned and walked out of the alcove.

“Can you explain what just happened back there?” I asked Sloan softly as we walked side-by-side down the hall.

“Looked pretty obvious to me,” Sloan said. “Old Hal made a pass and you nixed it.”

What was obvious to me was that Sloan didn’t seem to care a bit. There hadn’t been a trace of anger or annoyance in either his actions or his voice. Didn’t he care if someone made a pass at his fiancée? How could he have kissed me as he had in the garden and then been so cool when he’d found me extricating myself from another man’s arms?

And I couldn’t forget what Hal had said. His version of the argument that Sloan and Cameron had had on the night before she disappeared differed from James’s version. And Sloan had refused to talk about it at all.