Heritage Read online

  He smiled. “Just helping out. These can’t stay.” He turned around and pointed to the picture of the Native American turning into the eagle. “And that will have to go as well. I know you’ve been busy and just haven’t gotten around to it yet, so I thought I’d give you a hand. The faster this gets done, the sooner I get to have you back in Boston.”

  She meticulously returned the photographs to the wall. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be in Boston any longer—everyone worrying about status and the pressure to do and be perfect. The expectations. She had thought that was what she wanted, but now she wasn’t so sure. She felt more herself here.

  “I’ve been thinking.” Christopher walked across the small living room. “It may be hard to sell a place like this in the winter, so we can keep it until after the honeymoon. I think we should leave the furniture and sell it with the place.”

  Christopher obviously hadn’t been listening. He thought that by allowing her to keep this place until after the honeymoon that she’d be willing to sell it. She wouldn’t sell. It could be a breaking point between them. If it weren’t for her Ojibwa blood that would tear them apart. “I’m not selling it.”

  “I know not right away but eventually.” He turned to her with a smile. “We can’t keep it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s hardly big enough. There would be no place for a housekeeper for starters, not to mention any other staff. And if you did manage to wedge a housekeeper into that spare room, there would be absolutely no privacy for us.” He came over with that consolatory look in his eyes and put his hands on her shoulders. “If your heart is set on this island, then we can buy a more appropriate house. I saw some lovely ones on the bluff from the ferry. Or we could rent a suite at the Grand Hotel for a month at a time. No worries, no hassles.”

  She didn’t want another house or the Grand Hotel. She wanted this house, but was she willing to put her foot down now to keep it, or should she wait until after they were married? “Maybe we can keep it, too.”

  “Why keep it if we will never use it?”

  She stepped from under his hands. “We might. You never know.”

  Before he could respond—and she knew he would—someone knocked. She whirled around and opened the door. Surprised, she blinked several times. “Will. What are you doing here this time of day? Shouldn’t you be at the school?”

  “I’ll only be a moment. I couldn’t let any more time pass before apologizing to you. I’m sorry for my behavior last night. It was uncalled for.”

  “It was a simple misunderstanding.”

  Christopher eased the door from her hand and opened it all the way. “Hello. I’m Christopher Winston, Rachel’s fiancé.” He wrapped one possessive arm around her waist and thrust the other out toward Will.

  Will’s mouth pushed up in a stiff smile, and Rachel wondered if Christopher could tell it wasn’t real?

  Will shook Christopher’s outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Will Tobin. I’m your neighbor across the street.”

  Had Will gritted his teeth when he said your? This had the potential to get ugly real fast. “Thank you for stopping by, Will.” Now please leave before someone says something I’ll regret.

  Will gave her a quick nod. His forced smile seemed to soften when his gaze turned to her; then he left.

  She took a deep breath as she closed the door and turned to Christopher.

  Christopher was frowning. “What was that about?”

  She headed for the kitchen. “Nothing really. Just a misunderstanding. You want some tea?”

  “No, thank you.” He followed her. “I don’t like him. He doesn’t have a trustworthy face.”

  How could he tell anything about Will from his face? Maybe his Native American heritage if he cared to notice. Or was it was the Native American look he didn’t trust?

  The whole incident had been embarrassing for her—and not due to Will. She looked at Christopher’s scowl. How could she be embarrassed by her own fiancé? She busied her hands in making the tea while she explored her current feelings. How committed was she to Christopher in her heart, anyway?

  ❧

  Will jammed his bike into the bike rack. He had thought he had given Rachel and the whole situation to God, but seeing her fiancé just boiled his blood. She was really taken, and he had to stay as far from her as he could get. . .living across the street from her. And do a lot of praying.

  He went to his classroom. His prep period wasn’t even over yet. He put his face in his hands and stayed that way until long after the lunch bell rang. When he heard his door open and close, he raised his head.

  Garth pulled up a student chair next to his desk. “Did you see her?”

  He nodded.

  “Didn’t go so well?”

  He raised his lips in a sardonic smile. “Went great. Until I met her fiancé.”

  “Ouch. Was he a jerk?”

  “Not really. He’s probably a great guy, and she will be happily married for the rest of her life.”

  “While you are lonely and miserable?” Garth’s eyebrows rose up in question.

  “Yup.” He leaned back in his chair. “How do I get her off my mind? Just praying hasn’t budged her from my thoughts one iota.”

  “There is no better cure to dissolve infatuation than to start seeing someone else.”

  That sounded like a terrible idea. He didn’t want to see anyone else. “Have you ever tried that?”

  Garth nodded.

  “Did it work?”

  Garth hemmed and hawed. “Not exactly.”

  “You are recommending something that doesn’t even work?”

  “That’s because I was meant to be with Lori.”

  He rolled his eyes. “So what makes you think it will work for me?”

  “You obviously aren’t meant to be with Rachel.”

  “I think that is the problem. I haven’t accepted that yet. So how do I accept it?”

  “Lots of prayer.”

  He didn’t mind spending more time in prayer, drawing closer to the Lord; it was the ache inside that bothered him most. He just couldn’t help how he felt about her.

  Eight

  Christopher pointed to his suitcase near the front door. “I’ll just leave this here for now.”

  She wanted to say no, but she bit back the word. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be staying. He wouldn’t want to. He had grown up hating her and didn’t even know it. Though she hadn’t found the proof yet, just Will’s word, in her heart she knew she was part Ojibwa. How long could she avoid telling him? He deserved to know. Now or later, what difference did it make? The result would be the same. Her fairy-tale life would come to an end.

  She took her tea into the living room and sat on the couch. “Come sit with me. I have something I need to tell you.”

  He sat next to her. “Is this about that Will Tobin guy? I knew I didn’t like him from the minute I saw him.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “No, this has nothing to do with him. It has to do with my grandfather—who my grandfather was.” Her stomach knotted.

  His shoulders relaxed. “What is it?” He frowned. “Don’t bite your lip.”

  She released it.

  He took her hand. “You always do that when you’re nervous. There is nothing to be nervous about. It’s just me.”

  Yes, just you—who hates who I am. She knew she had to tell him. It wouldn’t be right to keep this from him. Her lineage shouldn’t matter, but it did to him and his family. “I’m Ojibwa.”

  “You’re what?” He took his hand from hers.

  She wouldn’t lie to him. “I’m probably at least one quarter Ojibwa. The Ojibwa lived on this island many years ago.”

  “You’re an Indian?” He stood.

  She stood, too. “Native American.”

  “You can’t be.”

  “But I am. Maybe your parents won’t mind.” It was empty hope.

  He jerked around to look at her. “They’ll mind all right. I
can’t believe this. Did you know about this before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, this ruins everything.” He thought for a moment. “Wait. We can fix this.”

  “What?”

  He put his hands on her upper arms. “Grease the right hands, change a few documents, and you have a whole new history. After all you hardly look Indian. Mother and Father never have to know.”

  Will had commented on how much she did look Ojibwa, not just Native American, but like her specific people. “Native American,” she ventured to say, not that Christopher would ever care to use the politically correct term. Maybe some people, people like Christopher’s family, preferred the term Indian because it made the people who were here first seem like the foreigners rather than those who came after them.

  “The point is you don’t have to be native anything. We can create the right kind of heritage for you.”

  Right kind? It seemed as though Christopher had inherited his family’s ability to make up their own version of history. “Changing who I am on paper would somehow take the Ojibwa out of my blood?” She finally had a lineage, a heritage. And he wanted to take it away from her.

  “No one knows. And no one has to know.”

  “I’ll know. You’ll know.”

  “It’ll be perfect. I promise.” He took her in his arms. “I love you.”

  When he leaned in to kiss her, she pushed away from him. “No, you don’t. You love what you think you can make of me—the idea of who you want me to be.”

  “Baby, let’s be reasonable about this.”

  “And you consider bribing people, falsifying documents, and lying to your family reasonable?”

  “I love you, baby. I want this to work. I can make this work for us.”

  She shook her head. “You can make it work for you, but not us. Not me. I want to be Ojibwa.”

  He stepped back from her, hurt on his face. “Baby, I did everything for you. I taught you how to dress, what to say, even how to furnish your apartment. But I didn’t do all that for my benefit.” He put his hand to his chest. “You can wear whatever you want for me. I did it so you could fit in easily with my family. So they could find no fault with you. I love you. I wanted you to be accepted unconditionally.”

  “But there were conditions, Christopher. If I dressed, behaved, and did everything as I should, then I would be accepted. I don’t want to live like that. I want to be me.”

  “Then be yourself.”

  She felt certain he was trying to convince her with false words—words he thought she wanted to hear.

  “Ojibwa? Your family wouldn’t let up on you until you were rid of me. They would make life miserable for both of us.”

  “Then we’ll cut ourselves off from my family.”

  She shook her head. “You could never do that.”

  “I could.”

  No, he couldn’t. He depended on their approval. He needed it as much as the air he breathed. She, on the other hand, depended only on herself. She had thought she wanted social status, but this is what she really wanted. A background, a heritage, even if it was less than perfect. But then who had an ancestry that was? Christopher could no more leave his family and heritage than she could leave hers, and she would prove it to him. “We could elope today, and you could move in here with me? In this tiny house?”

  His eyes widened. “What about mother? She would have fits. I could never do that to her.”

  Exactly. He wanted to keep her, but his instincts always went back to his family. What else had he told her because it was what he thought she wanted to hear?

  His features slacked. “I would be disinherited.”

  She just stared, feeling sorry for him.

  He raked a hand through his blond hair. “Why are you doing this? I thought you wanted a home and family?”

  She had both here. “I’m Ojibwa, Native American, Indian. Your family can’t live with that. And now that I’ve discovered it, I can’t live without it. This is who I am. And your family will hate me for it. You will come to hate me for it, too.”

  She had never been as committed to Christopher as he was to her. It was his status that drew her to him—a status she once thought so important. Now it seemed so frivolous. So his leaving wouldn’t really be a loss. She could live without the status and without Christopher. Christopher had known that she didn’t love him the way he said he loved her, but he wanted to marry her anyway. What he really wanted was a trophy, and she had wanted to please and to fit in his family. But love? She had assumed that would come in time. Christopher had convinced her it would.

  Nine

  After she came back from her November photo shoot, Rachel knocked on Will’s front door. He had been avoiding her. And for good reason. He still thought she was engaged. She was here to bring him some good news. . .and invite him to dinner. Two weeks in New York had been good for her.

  She pulled her coat tighter around herself. Low snow clouds hung in the sky. She could feel the coming snow in the air even though it hadn’t started falling yet. It would soon. When Will opened the door, she smiled brightly. Will did not return her cheery greeting. No matter. “Can I come in? It’s cold out here.”

  The muscle in his jaw flexed as though he were clenching his teeth, but he opened the door wider for her to enter. He closed the door behind her but stayed beside it and didn’t offer to take her coat.

  She pulled at the fingers of her gloves as she scanned the living room. Brown leather furniture, thick heavy tables, wrought iron lamps. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce this was a bachelor pad. “You have a nice place here.”

  “What can I do for you?” His words were cold.

  She turned to face him as she draped both gloves in her right hand. “It’s what I can do for you.”

  He raised one disbelieving eyebrow.

  She continued before he could protest. “I promised you a home-cooked meal, and I intend to make good on that promise.”

  His mouth pulled into a thin smile. “I think it’s best if I decline considering the circumstances.”

  He’d already proved that he didn’t always take note of a woman’s left hand, so she would make sure he did this time. She held out her left hand to him. “Circumstances have changed.”

  He studied her bare hand for a moment. “I hope that had nothing to do with me.”

  She shook her head. “Christopher’s family had a little problem with me being Ojibwa.”

  He pulled his brow down. “Why should that matter?”

  Exactly. But it did. She waved her hand in dismissal. “It’s a long story. And believe me rather boring. So does seven work for you?”

  “I still don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, and his pained expression said he was trying to find the words to say what he wanted to say as kindly as possible.

  The stunned look he had given her when she had said she didn’t attend church flashed before her. Was he that prejudiced that he couldn’t even have dinner with someone who didn’t believe as he did? “Is this because I don’t hold the same religious beliefs as you?”

  “Well, there is that, too.”

  “Too? So you want nothing to do with me because I’m not religious like you. Christopher doesn’t want me because I’m part Native American. My stepfathers didn’t want me because I wasn’t theirs. Can’t anyone accept me just as I am? Do I always have to change and be someone else to please others?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  She moved toward the door, but Will was standing in her way. “Let me go.”

  “Please let me explain. I don’t want to be some rebound romance to get you through your pain and then tossed aside.”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “Who said anything about romance?”

  “Isn’t that what this is about?” He lifted her left hand. “Why you showed me your vacant finger?”

  She yanked her hand away and clenched her teet
h. “Please let me leave.”

  “I’m sorry. Can we sit down and talk about this?”

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to leave.” She pulled open the door as far as she could and pushed herself out. She needed to escape.

  She stopped in the middle of the street and took a deep, calming breath. Snow had begun to drift out of the sky. She caught a flake on her bare hand. Each one beautiful. Each one different. Why couldn’t people be accepted the same way? It melted, and she shoved her hands into her coat pockets.

  She had gone over in such a good mood and look what he’d done to it.

  ❧

  Will watched Rachel until she was inside her house; then he picked up the phone. It rang and rang and rang. Maybe it was too soon for her to talk to him. Should he go over to her house? He shook his head. She would probably just ignore his knocks as well.

  He’d made a mess of things tonight. He should have just said, “Sure I’d love to come to dinner.” The news of her breakup was still unreal. He had been trying hard to get his mind on other things besides her. . .without much luck. He didn’t want to be a stopgap between this fiancé and the next.

  He knelt down in front of his recliner. He hadn’t knelt to pray since he was a child, but it seemed so right. There was power on his knees. Lord, wrap your loving arms around Rachel tonight. Help me know how to help her.

  He’d been praying more than usual since trying to get Rachel out of his head, and the Lord kept impressing one thing on his heart—be her friend. He’d told the Lord that there was no way, at this point, that he could just be her friend. He couldn’t be around her and her fiancé, soon-to-be husband, and not be bitter or angry or want more than friendship from her. Maybe this was what the Lord had in mind. He knew she would be breaking up with her fiancé and would need a friend, and the Lord wanted to prepare him for that. Okay, Lord, I’ll be her friend. . .if she still even wants me as a friend.

  ❧

  Rachel had successfully avoided Will for the rest of the week, and then he left. Probably to see family for Thanksgiving. He’d said his mother lived on the mainland. After Thanksgiving, she avoided him again for a few days, but the day before she was to leave for the Caribbean for another photo shoot, she found a present on her doorstep in a black gift bag with colorful stars on it and bright blue tissue paper sprouting from the top. He must have left it on his way to work this morning. She would march right over to his house and return it to him, except he wasn’t home yet. It would have to wait until he got home for her to tell him no thank you.