One Small Secret. Meagan McKinney

stared at her for a long moment. An eternity. Then without warning he asked, “Who’s Lockey?”

      She’d expected shock, horror, even surprise, when she told him about the death threat. What she hadn’t counted on was this intense gaze and pointed, offthe-subject curiosity.

      “Lockey’s my daughter,” she answered quietly, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. “She’s really not an eavesdropper, but she did overhear these men who were staying in the attic rooms talk about the Hall. The sheriff took a report and called your company, but I didn’t know about the threat to your life until just now. I felt it would be better for me to come and tell you myself than have Doug call your company.”

      He looked nonplussed. “I’ve got a cell phone here. They would have called if it was important.”

      She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that. Once again, a year of unanswered phone calls and letters to Griffin Industries came back to haunt her. Sure. He got all his important messages. The little note about the illegitimate child just hadn’t been important enough to answer. So she had given up trying. Her embittered father had certainly encouraged her to quit. In the end, he’d wanted her to preserve some of the Shaw dignity. And there was none in leaving messages that were never returned.

      She stood. It had been a waste of time to see him. There was relief in knowing it was futile. Now at least her conscience was clear.

      “Well, I’ve done what I can. I’ll make a formal report to the sheriff, if you like. I was just so frightened when Lockey told me about the death threat that I felt compelled to come here and tell you personally.”

      “I get death threats all the time. If they called me every time, I’d never get off the phone.”

      She almost gasped. It didn’t seem possible, but this angry man hardly cared at all that two people had expressed the desire to see him dead. To be that jaded seemed foreign to her. But that was probably because she had so much at stake. She couldn’t take anything for granted. After all, she was a parent.

      Her stomach gave a sick lurch.

      Then again, so was he.

      “I get crap like this all the time. Don’t give it another thought.” He stood, also.

      Her exit was at hand. Disarmed of her information, she had no choice but to make small talk with the man or take her leave.

      And suddenly she was very much aware that she was not prepared to talk to him tonight. If any sticky issues arose, she knew she would deal with them honestly and fully. But what if they didn’t arise? Would she still tell him?

      She needed time to make up her mind about what she should do. Mark Griffin was rich and powerful. So much so that a year of calling Zurich, writing him letters and resorting to sheer prayer, had not landed him on her doorstep when she’d needed him. It seemed when he’d inherited the family business, he’d gone underground, and there had been no locating him.

      But that was water under the bridge now. He was back, and she had a choice to make. She could tell him about their daughter and pray he wouldn’t do something that would forever change her and Lockey’s hard-won contentment, or she could decide that Mark was not father material. She could let him donate the Hall and go back to Zurich none the wiser. And her life—and her daughter‘s—wouldn’t change one iota.

      But that decision would have to wait. Now wasn’t the time to spring a surprise on him. She didn’t want to watch him run away. Nor did she want to expose Lockey to the hurt and rejection she’d gone through herself. Mark Griffin was no longer the young man who’d won her over with his idealism and loneliness. Now he was a man, full-grown and immensely powerful. Mark had the money to change both their lives—and not necessarily for the better.

      No, she had to have time to think. She had to do what was best for Lockey.

      Clearing her throat, she said, “Well, I really should get back. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just worried.” She smiled. “But I don’t think it would be foolish to keep the front gate locked. I think you should be careful.”

      He glanced around. “That’s why I came here. To get away from the need to be careful.”

      She almost released a bitter smile. “Natchez is like any other place. Not without its perils.”

      Their gazes met. The silence between them grew heavy.

      “Well, again, please excuse my barging in here.”

      “How long has it been since I saw you here, Honor?”

      Each word seemed to slice at her She felt irrational tears come to her eyes. “Look, I really do have to get back.”

      “Yes, I forgot about your daughter. Is there a husband waiting for you back at the Retreat, as well?”

      She thought she heard something in his voice—maybe even a bitterness of his own—but she wondered if it was only her wishful thinking. Sometimes dreams could be so strong they impaired the judgment.

      “Nope. Just me and Lockey.”

      “What about your dad?”

      “He’s gone.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      She nodded, then remembered the day when Mark got the call about his parents’ deaths in a bush plane off the coast of Africa. He’d been inconsolable. He flew off to the funeral, then to Zurich to be taught all the things about Griffin Industries his Wharton education had missed. She’d never seen him again, never heard from him again. It was as if he’d never existed, except for the one small thing he’d left behind with her.

      “I’ve really got to go.” The unshed tears in her eyes were stinging like acid. One more minute and they would flood over, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to explain her feelings tonight.

      Walking out of Blackbird Hall like Cinderella at midnight, she didn’t even notice he was following her.

      “Honor.”

      Her name on his lips made her halt.

      “Honor, I came back here to donate the place to the Trust.”

      “Yes, you told me that.” She didn’t turn around. Suddenly she was wildly grateful for the bad lighting in the foyer.

      “I also came back here because I wanted to think. Maybe even...to remember.”

      Her breath stopped.

      “Things haven’t gone so well for me. I don’t know if you read the papers, but I—”

      “Yes, I read about your girlfriend being killed in London. I’m truly sorry.” She couldn’t have missed the story. Ralia Pembroke, supermodel and acknowledged steady of millionaire Mark Griffin. The woman’s tall exoticism had made Honor die a little inside every time she saw a cosmetic commercial.

      “But what the news didn’t tell you is that she was killed with my best friend, George, in that car accident on the bridge. And that they were both stark naked when the limo went over the rail.”

      Honor paused. He was right; she hadn’t known anything about that.

      Suddenly the bitterness she’d imagined in his voice was there for real. “I was thinking about giving her a ring, Honor. I knew she wasn’t right for me, but I still wanted something—something I knew I was missing. I just couldn’t get it from her. Afterward, I only knew one thing. I had to come here. I had to.”

      She didn’t turn to look at him; she was too afraid of his expression and what it might do to her selfpossession.

      “I’m sorry,” she rasped, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands, knowing her composure was breaking like a dam. “Really,” she added, as she sped out the door and down the drive toward home, not once looking back.

      Three

      Mark