She might try. But damned if he was going to let her succeed.

"Our father loved her very much," Bree said softly. "He talked about her a lot."

"Did you know back then that he was married to Margery and not your mother?"

She looked stricken. "Oh, no. Until this afternoon, I believed he'd divorced Margery. He and Mom wore matching wedding bands. He spoke of her as his wife. I never dreamed..." Moaning softly, she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, God, it sounds like some TV movie, doesn't it? The honest, upright, churchgoing pillar of the community who secretly has two wives, two families, two lives. No wonder Holly's stunned."

Tom stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. "We've been out in the cold long enough. Let's head back."

But all Bree did was look up. In the dim light, panic glazed her hazel eyes. "What if she doesn't want me there? What if she doesn't want anything around to remind her of-of what he did? What if she throws me out?"

"She's not going to throw you out." That was the only question he could answer for sure. It was entirely possible that Holly wouldn't want her around, that she might fire her and put her on the first bus to Rochester . But that bus wouldn't be running until the middle of the week, and until then Bree needed a place to live, and Holly didn't throw family out. Margery's presence at the inn proved that.

"But what if she hates me? What if she blames me for ruining her life? What if she just tolerates having me there the way she just tolerates her mother?"

"If that's the case, you'll have to deal with it. But you won't know until you face her, so..." As if it were something he did every day, he extended his hand and, when she took it, pulled her to her feet. They walked to the car in silence. They'd driven several blocks when Bree spoke. "Are you in love with Holly?"

His fingers automatically tightened around the steering wheel and the muscles in his stomach clenched. His first impulse was to answer no, of course not. He'd been called a coldhearted bastard in fifteen languages, and coldhearted bastards didn't know how to love anything but money and power. His second impulse was to tell her to mind her own business. What he felt for Holly was strictly between him and her. Family or not, no twenty-something teary-eyed kid had any right to pry into his personal life.

But all either response would accomplish was to brush her off. It wouldn't stop the question from echoing quietly inside him. Was he in love with Holly?

Aware of Bree's unwavering gaze, Tom felt his face grow warm. "Define love," he said gruffly.

She was silent for a moment, then she said, "Everything in your life is different. You find yourself doing things you never would have done before her, having conversations you couldn't have had. She changes the way you look at life, at other people, at yourself. Things that never mattered before become important to you because they're important to her. You don't care what anyone else thinks of you, but you care what she thinks. You rearrange your priorities to make more time for her. Being with her makes you happy. Being away from her leaves you feeling empty. When she's upset or afraid or hurt, there's nothing you wouldn't do to make it all right. She makes you all right." Her voice softened. "She's the best thing that ever happened to you, and without her ... you might not survive."

Well, hell, he thought as he turned into the inn's drive. She'd done a fair job of describing how he felt. So that was love, and he wasn't incapable of it at all.

He parked and reached to shut off the engine. Bree stopped him with her hand on his arm. "You didn't answer. Do you love Holly? Is that how you feel?"

He drew a breath and murmured into the darkness, "I feel scared to death."

Her reply sounded amused. "Yeah, that's part of it, too."

"But right now the problem with Holly is yours. Are you ready to face her?"

"No." She laughed nervously. "My whole plan sounded so much better in Rochester . I thought I would come here, get a job, dazzle her with my efficiency, and after we became the best of friends, then I'd tell her who I was. Naturally, she would be thrilled to finally have the sister she'd always wanted and would welcome me as such." She gave a shake of her head. "Fantasies are always so much better than reality."

"She did always want a sister."

"Really?" She sounded hopeful, but it quickly passed. "Wanting a sister and actually having one are two different matters. A fantasy sister doesn't mess up your life, destroy your good memories of your father, or send your mother into a rage."

True. But fantasies couldn't be as good as reality, because if they were, he might not stand a chance.

And he couldn't stand that.

They went into the inn, past the somber night clerk and through the kitchen to the door to Holly's apartment. After trying it and finding it locked, Tom knocked.

A moment later, Holly's voice came quietly through the door. "What?"

"It's me."

"And me," Bree added, sounding as nervous as she looked.

Everything, it seemed, became utterly still. Each breath he and Bree took was magnified in his ears. The throb of his pulse provided a quiet back beat, and Bree's nervous shifting made her clothing rustle audibly.

After the click of the lock turning, Holly slowly opened the door, but no more than a few inches, which she blocked with her could. She was dressed for bed in a T-shirt and robe, and looked pale and stressed, with lines bracketing her mouth, her arms folded across her chest, her hands knotted tightly. She didn't say a word but simply looked at them.

Bree began. "Holly, I'm so sorry-"

Holly interrupted her coolly, unemotionally. "If you feel like finishing your shift, go ahead. If you don't, that's fine, too." Then she moved to close the door.

Bree stopped her. "Can't we talk?" she pleaded. "Just for a minute? There are so many things I want to say to you, so many questions I want to ask."

"Not tonight. I've heard all I want to hear from you tonight. Go to the kitchen, go to your room, go wherever you want, as long as it's away from me. Leave me alone."

Bree stared at her for a moment, obviously tempted to speak anyway, then spun around, went into her room, and closed the door.

"Well ... that was certainly the mature way to handle it," Tom said mildly.

Holly moved once more to close the door, but he was prepared for it. He grabbed hold, forced her to back away and came in.

"What was that all about?" he demanded.

"I'm tired, and I have a headache. I don't feel like dealing with her tonight."

"'Dealing' with her? That's your sister, for God's sake. She waited her entire life to meet you, and you don't feel like 'dealing' with her?"

She started to turn away, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. Suddenly angry, she jerked loose. "I don't feel like dealing with you, either," she said coldly. "So why don't you get the hell out?"

Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned against the door. "Your father betrayed you, Holly, not me. I'm sorry you found out the way you did. I'm sorry you're upset and disappointed. But you're not going to take it out on me, and you're sure as hell not taking it out on your sister."

"She's not my sister! She's his bast-"

Tom freed one hand and extended it until his index finger almost touched her nose. "Don't call her that," he warned in a deadly quiet voice. "Don't ever call her that."

Too late she realized that her insult applied to him as well as to Bree. It was one he'd heard frequently over the years. Every time he'd seen his mother's father, the old man had called him that, with all the scorn and hatred he'd been able to muster. It had hurt his mother, and shamed him, and he'd hated his grandfather for it.

Holly took a step back and rubbed one hand over her face. "I'm sorry," she said stiffly, and he half believed she was. "But this has not been one of the better surprises in my life, and I need some time... All my life I loved my father, and I resented my mother. I blamed her for everything. It was her fault he traveled so much, her fault he was distant even when he was here, her fault that he was only a part-time father to me, and not a very good one at that. I made all the excuses in the world for him, and laid all the blame on her, and ... I was wrong. He wasn't running away from Margery. He was running to Allison. And Bree. He chose them over us. He wanted to be with them. To hear Bree tell it, he was the best father a kid could have asked for." Her voice softened and grew bitter. "But not to me."

"Bree says he loved you."

"Yeah, he really showed it, didn't he? Every minute of his life was a damned lie. Every time he was here, every time he was gone ... I thought I knew him, but he was a master deceiver. I didn't know that he was the most selfish person in my life. He forced my mother to live here in a place she hated while he went off and lived half his life elsewhere with his make-believe wife and his replacement daughter."

Tom reached for her, but she backed away again. Relenting, he lowered his hand to his side. "Holly, whatever his reasons for doing that, it had nothing to do with you."

"It had everything to do with me!" she cried. "I loved him! I trusted him! He's the only man in the world I've ever been able to say that about, the only man I thought I would always be able to say that about! And I was wrong. How could I love him when I didn't even know him? How could I trust him when his entire life was just one huge deception after another?" She angrily swiped away a tear. "God, I'm glad he's dead, because if he wasn't, I'd want to kill him myself! I hate him!"

"Fine. Hate him. Hate Allison. Hate everycould in the whole damned world ... but not Bree. And not me."

She stared at him, and he read the sorrow in her eyes. The confusion. The hurt. The fear. Hell, he shared them with her. She was going to use this as a reason to back away from him. He knew it as surely as he knew that he couldn't let her, or he'd lose her forever.

Then she blinked, and the emotions disappeared. It was an impressive feat. Even he, at his coldest, hadn't been able to turn it off that quickly, that completely. She looked cool and composed, as if they were discussing some topic of little or no importance. "I don't hate her," she conceded, "but I don't want her here, either. The family I was cursed with at birth has been enough of a headache for me. I'm not looking for any more trouble. Maybe someday I'll change my mind, but not now. Now I want her gone."

He wanted to touch her, to take her in his arms and hold her and kiss her until she'd forgotten all about her parents and the pain they'd caused her, but in all the time he'd known her, she'd never seemed less approachable. He knew that if he put his arms around her, she would stand stiff and unrelenting. She would refuse to lean on him the way she needed to, the way he needed her to. She would keep herself distant, and he would feel rejected, and so he stayed back.

"You always wanted a sister," he reminded her. "Until you turned twelve and your mother humiliated you in front of all your friends and you decided that you'd rather be an only child and the only target for her temper than subject some helpless, innocent kid to her anger."

"I never said that!"

"But it's true, isn't it? You wanted a sister, but one who wouldn't have to suffer with Margery the way you did. Well, that's what you've got."

Tears filled her eyes. He'd never seen her cry and would have sworn a year ago-hell, even two months ago-that she was no more capable of crying than he was of loving. "But she wasn't here when I was growing up and needed her," she whispered. "Now I don't need her. I don't need any one."

"You're wrong. You need me."

She shook her head numbly. "No. I don't need anyone, and I never will. Needing someone, trusting, believing... It takes too much out of a person. People always let you down, and the disappointment ... I can't bear the disappointment." Shaking her head again, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.

Tom stood there in the hallway, debating what to do. He could try to talk to her and get nowhere. He could try to hold her and probably get nowhere with that. Or he could take some aspirin, go to bed, and hope things would be better in the morning.

Right, he scoffed silently as he let himself out, then took the rear stairs to the second floor. She'd just received the biggest shock of her life, had found out that she'd been betrayed by the one man she'd thought absolutely could not betray her, and she was on the verge of deciding that she would never trust anyone again, never love anyone again.

He was afraid it would be one hell of a long time before things seemed even remotely better.

Chapter 15.

S ome days it just didn't pay to wake up.

Margery rolled onto her side and squinted at the alarm clock, but she couldn't force the blurs into separate numbers. Judging from the light streaming in the windows, it was at least mid-morning, and she was hungry, achy, and hung over. But she couldn't remember drinking the day before. That smart-assed waitress of Holly's had brought her ice water instead of scotch and water, and when she'd tried to deal with her, Bree had- Oh, God. Bree. Allison. Holly.

She was hung over, all right, from an overdose of emotional distress and a shot of something from Holly's doctor friend, who had mentioned something about one alcoholic to another, and rehab. Everything after that was fuzzy.

So now Holly knew the truth about Lewis.

And Margery would have given anything to spare her. Damn Lewis, damn Allison, and, especially, damn Bree for coming to the inn in the first place. She'd lived her entire life without ever meeting Holly. Why couldn't she have lived the rest of it the same way?

A soft sound from behind her penetrated the thick fog that filled her brain. She glanced over her shoulder, then slowly turned onto her other side.

Holly was sitting in the chair there, looking as beautiful as ever. She wore a green wool dress with a simple rounded neck, long sleeves, and a matching belt cinched around her slender waist. Her hair was perfectly styled, her makeup perfectly applied. There was a distant look in her eyes, and a grim set to her mouth, but other than that, she didn't look like the same stunned woman who'd very quietly, very desperately, left the library the afternoon before.

Margery wanted to say something totally innocent, harmless, maybe amusing-something that Holly couldn't possibly take offense at, that couldn't possibly make her think of anything hurtful or disappointing. But when she opened her mouth, the words that slipped out were all wrong: "She reminds me of you."

It took a moment for Holly to return from her thoughts, to hear and understand what she'd said. She shifted her gaze to Margery and icily asked, "Who reminds you of me?"

Nervously Margery moistened her lips. "Bree. I told you she reminded me of someone, remember? But I couldn't figure out who. It was you. Her eyes, the shape of her mouth, the stubbornness of her jaw... You both inherited those things from your father."

Holly stared at her unflinchingly for so long that Margery wished she were still asleep, incapable of causing her daughter any further pain or heartache. After a time, though, Holly asked, "Did you know about her?"

Margery shook her head. "I knew ... I knew he was having an affair. Multiple ones, I thought, with different women. I never dreamed it was just one, and never in my worst nightmares did I think it could be Allison, or that he would have a child with her."

"I'll never forgive him for this."

"No one would ask you to."

"I'm furious with him."

"You're entitled."

"I'm certainly not going to be her sister."

That remark jerked Margery out of her agreeable mood. "Excuse me? Do you think you have a choice in that, little girl? She is your sister, like it or not. You can't just wave your magic wand and make her disappear."

"I can make her leave my inn. I can make her disappear from my life."

"And what would that accomplish? You would be punishing her for things her parents did, and punishing yourself, too. She's waited a long time to meet her big sister."

"I'm not interested in being anyone's big sister. It's too late for that."

"It's too late to share a bedroom and confide all your secrets to each other, or to play dolls or dress-up or giggle about first dates. But you can still have a very special relationship, Holly, different from anything you've ever known. You can give her advice, and she can make you lighten up a bit. You can make her feel welcome in her father's home. You can-"

"It's my home now, and she's not welcome." Holly's temper flared. "How can you take her side? She and her mother helped destroy our lives!"

Margery sat up, discovered she was wearing her favorite black silk nightgown, and wondered who had helped her put it on. One or more of Holly's unfortunate employees, she assumed. It would not happen again. The days of being undressed and put to bed by strangers were over. "Holly, I'm sixty-two years old, and I have been miserable most of my life. I'm too old and too tired to worry about whose fault that was. Some of it was Lewis's. Some was Allison's. Most of it, undoubtedly, was mine. But laying blame doesn't change anything. It doesn't make me any happier. It doesn't give me a better relationship with you or anyone else, for that matter.

"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm just telling you that being angry and holding grudges and laying blame doesn't do anything but leave you a sad, unhappy, and bitter person. I know that from my own experience. I don't have a real friend in the world, and my daughter-my only family-is happiest when I'm five hundred miles away. But at least you're one up on me in the family department. You've got a sister, and she wants very much to be a part of your life. You can blame her for what your father did and send her away, or you can find out what it's like to have family who loves you and wants to be there for you."

Holly stared at her mutinously. "At least you acknowledge that it's my choice. And my choice is to send her away. If you have a problem with that, well, you're perfectly welcome to leave with her." Moving with tightly controlled grace, she stood up and walked to the door. "Since you obviously survived the night and require no further medication, I've got work to do."

"There is one thing I need, Holly." Margery spoke quickly to stop her from walking out, to get the words out before her courage slipped away. "A favor, if you will."

Holly turned back, a wary look firmly in place. "What kind of favor?"

"Last night your friend, the doctor, mentioned a-a treatment facility for people with ... problems. Will you..." Briefly she acknowledged how much easier this conversation would be with a glass of wine or a cold beer to help the words along. Her mouth actually watered at the thought, until she closed her eyes and cleared the image, the taste, the comfort, from her mind. "Will you call him and ask the name of this-this hospital? I ... would like to go there as soon as possible."

Holly stared at her-simply stared. Not once in her life had Margery made any real effort to stop drinking. She was sure her daughter had believed the day would never come, but it was time. There was so much she was sorry for, so much she needed to make right, but she couldn't do that until she'd dealt with the fact that she was an alcoholic, and a mean one, at that.

After a long time, Holly swallowed hard, then nodded. "I'll call him as soon as he gets home from church."

Margery nodded, too. "Thank you. I'll be packed and ready to go."