she withdrew the letter from inside and read:
Dear Mr. McCormick,
I represent a brother and sister, the former Stephen and Charlotte McCormick, now named Spencer Melbourne and Lucy Cagney, originally of Richmond, Virginia, and now living in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, respectively. The matter concerns their search for an older brother, Jack William McCormick, from whom they have been separated for more than thirty years. Through my investigative endeavors, I have reason to believe you are that brother....
“Oh, Jack,” Georgia said as she glanced up at him again. “You’ve found them.”
He shook his head, his expression a mixture of joy and terror. “No, they’ve found me.”
She dropped her gaze back to the letter and read through to the end, marveling at how much this must mean to him. “Have you contacted them yet?” she asked when she completed the missive.
He shook his head again.
“Why not?”
“I’m not ready yet.”
“But you’ve been wanting to find them ever since I met you.”
“I’m not ready yet,” he repeated.
“But, Jack...”
He strode restlessly across the room and collapsed onto the sofa beside her, as if his legs were no longer sturdy enough to hold him. He tipped his head backward until it was resting on the sofa’s back, stared blindly up at the ceiling and sighed with much vigor.
“Do you remember how I told you I made a promise to myself the day the social workers came and took Stevie and Charley away from me?”
Her heart turned over at the memory of the vow a small boy had made. “You swore you would find them someday,” she said. “And that the three of you would be a family again.”
He snapped his head forward, his expression vicious as he stared out at the living room. “And I promised myself I’d be in a position to take care of them when I did. That no one would be able to take them from me again. Ever.”
For the first time since encountering him again, Georgia saw a clear sign that the boy of seventeen was still very much alive in Jack McCormick. Part of him was still scared, still unsure of himself, still untrusting of the world. She smiled sadly, wondering why she was surprised. In spite of making it on her own all these years, a big part of Georgia would never be able to leave behind the frightened girl she’d been before meeting Jack.
“But the twins must be over thirty years old now, Jack—”
“Thirty-five,” he interrupted her.
“Surely they’ve been taking care of themselves for years. No one could take them away from you now. They’re adults. They can come and go as they please.”
“They might still be in trouble,” he told her. “They might still need someone to look out for them. Hell, look what happened to me.”
“Hey, if that nice little foreign job you drove up in is any indicator, it looks to me like you’re a big success,” she said.
He turned to look at her full on, his eyes dark and angry. “Success is a relative term,” he told her softly. “And you have no idea what it’s taken to get here. Until I know for certain, I can’t be satisfied that the twins are okay. They could have been constantly moved from one place to another, like I was. They could have ended up with people who didn’t give a damn about them, like I did. Anything could have happened to...”
He rose abruptly and began to pace restlessly the length of the small room. Georgia watched him in silence, giving him a moment to cool down. It was funny, how easily the two of them had slipped back into their old rotes—Jack feeling edgy and anxious about something, Georgia there to listen and reassure.
“They both have different names now,” she began again when he seemed to be calming down somewhat. “Obviously they were adopted. They probably had very good lives. Just because you were forsaken by the state doesn’t mean they—”
“They weren’t with their family,” he interrupted again, halting his pacing directly in front of her. “Their rightful family, I mean. They weren’t with me. They couldn’t possibly have lived lives as good as they could have had if we’d all stayed together.”
Georgia couldn’t argue with that. Even though her own experience with family was a painful one, she felt certain that Jack McCormick would have made a difference in his twin siblings’ lives, however those lives had been lived.
“You should answer this letter,” she said. “You should see them. As soon as possible.”
“I will. But not yet. I’m not ready. There’s one more thing I have to do. One more promise I made to myself that I have to keep before I can send for my brother and sister.”
“What promise is that?”
His gaze snapped to hers, his eyes stormy. But he said nothing to enlighten her.
Georgia opened her mouth to say something else, then thought better of the action. Obviously, Jack had given this matter some thought, and nothing she could say would change his mind. She folded the letter neatly back into thirds, carefully slid it into its envelope and handed it to him. He took it from her silently, gazed at it for a moment, then slid it back into his jacket pocket.
The coffeemaker in the kitchen wheezed its last gasp. Georgia rose and filled two mugs, then carried them carefully back to the living room. When Jack only stared blindly at the mug she extended toward him, she set it on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa beside him again.
As covertly as she could, she stole a glance at his profile, still unable to believe he was actually there, chatting about the twins as if twenty-three years hadn’t passed since their last conversation. He gazed toward the windows that overlooked the beach, obviously consumed by thoughts of his family, and she took advantage of his preoccupation to consider him more fully.
His black hair was kissed with silver, and he had a small scar high on his cheek that hadn’t been there before. She wondered how he’d come by it, wondered about everything that had happened to him after he’d left Carlisle. Without even realizing what she was doing, she glanced down at his left hand to see if he was wearing a wedding band but saw no indication that he had ever slipped one on.
His hands seemed bigger somehow than they had been before. All of him seemed bigger somehow. Over the years, whenever her thoughts had strayed to memories of Jack, she’d recalled a young man of wiry build and awkward movement, a boy who always seemed to be looking over his shoulder or dancing around as if dodging a punch. She supposed that was understandable, seeing as how it hadn’t been unusual for him to show up at her bedroom window bloodied and bruised. The Jack of her youth had been running every bit as scared as she had been.
But this Jack seemed fearless. Solid. Unwavering. His focus was sharp, and he clearly had a plan of action. She just wished she could tell what it was. Somehow, she sensed he was hiding something from her. Even though so many years had passed, and in the scheme of things she really hadn’t known him for that long, Georgia felt as if she could still read Jack intimately. And even beyond all the outward changes, for some
