A Bad Boy is Good to Find(50)

Dear Mr. Milford,

You’ve ignored every letter I’ve sent, and it’s like I sent you a piece of my heart and never got it back and now it’s bled out and hollow and I don’t feel too much pain any more. I know you don’t love me, maybe you never did, and now that I’m a woman and a wife I can see that you likely didn’t love my mother either. You didn’t treat her right and I could see that even as a child. You see I’m a lot less ignorant about the relationships between women and men. Men have more power and they can use their strength to dominate, but don’t you believe that you are winning anything of value.

I’ve said a thousand rosaries for you and for my husband and for all mankind and I think they are falling on ears as deaf as yours. Thank Heaven for my two strong young sons, who are the only joy I have left in this world.

You were right that choosing my husband was a mistake, but maybe staying with a heartless, cruel man like you who can cut off his only daughter as if she never lived would have been a graver mistake.

I don’t suppose you’ve even read any of my letters and I don’t expect you’ll read this one either.

In sorrow over what has been lost,

K



And that was the last one. A chill roamed over Lizzie as she read the bitter, angry words of the last letter.

Could she really show these letters to Con?

She bit her lip and slipped the folded bit of paper back in the envelope. Maybe it was better not to know some things.

The screeching racket of the tree frogs outside made her long to close the windows, but the nighttime air was mercifully cooler.

There was no way she could lie down and sleep with a secret like this on her conscience.

“Con.”

“Hmmmm.” His mouth shifted but his eyes didn’t open.

She gathered the letters and went to sit on the bed. She put her hand on his warm arm and shook. “Con, wake up.”

“What?” he squeezed his eyes, then cracked one open. The light was in his eyes.

“The letters, I read them.”

“So what? It’s nighttime. Tell me in the morning.” He lifted the sheet for her to get in with him.

“Con, I think they’re from your mom.”

His eyes snapped open, but not all the way, just until they were dark slits peering suspiciously at her. “Impossible.”

“I’m serious. They’re from a woman who ran away with a man her father disapproved of. She writes about naming her first son Conroy Anthony.”

“’S not me.”

“Anthony isn’t your middle name?”

“I don’t have a middle name. Conroy Beale, that’s all she wrote.”

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Rina.”

“Oh.” Her fearful excitement deflated a little. She’d been so sure. “Your brother, did he have blond hair?”

“Nope, light brownish.”

“Oh. It’s just that… otherwise the details seem to fit. She married a man who she thought was wonderful and he turned out to be a mean drunk with no money. Will you take a look at them?”

“No, I’m tired. Come to bed, Lizzie.”

“Please?” She hated the whiny tone of her voice.

“No. I don’t even want to touch those damn letters. They give me the creeps.” He slanted a suspicious glance at them where they lay in her hand.

“Can I read one to you?”

Con let out a loud sigh and pulled the sheet up over his shoulder. “If you must.”

By the time she’d finished reading them all—which didn’t take long—he was propped up on his elbow staring at her, lips parted.

“See what I mean? The details match right up.”

“Well,” he frowned, “some of them do, but like I said, my mom’s name was Rina. What’s the postmark on the envelope?”

“Breaux.”

“Shit.” Con bit his lip. That’s the nearest town to Mudbug Flats with a post office. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Your mom grew up in this house.”

Con blew out a snort. “Well, that is just impossible.”

“How? She’s writing to her father at this address. We found the letters in this bed. This was probably her father’s bedroom. It is the biggest.”

Con squirmed, like the bed suddenly grew spikes. “No, really. There’s no way my mom grew up someplace like this. She wasn’t, you know, sophisticated or smart or anything. She was just a nice woman. There’s no way…”

“If she ran away when she was very, very young, say fifteen or sixteen, then she wouldn’t necessarily seem polished and sophisticated.”

Con shook his head emphatically. “I don’t think so.”

“And, think about it, couldn’t Rina be short for say, Katherine? That would match up with the K she signs. What was her maiden name?”

Con gave her a funny look. “I don’t know what her maiden name was. But, you know, I think she did have Katherine written inside her prayer book. I asked her about it once.” He sat up, an expression of deepening alarm on his face. “And—” He stared at her, a distant look that chilled her. “She kept a lock of my brother’s hair taped inside her prayer book—he was sick a lot when he was little…” He tapped his chest, searching for a word. “He had um…respiratory infections. That lock of hair was real pale, almost white.” He stared at her, blinking.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Lizzie bit her lip.

“She never did say where she was from. I can kind of see why if she’d made a big step down like that.” Con rubbed his hand over his mouth. “That kind of thing freaks people out. Better to keep it a secret, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. You’re the expert on secrets.” Lizzie was getting a nasty prickly sensation up and down her spine.

“She always said my father was a good man when she met him.” Con looked past her, out into the darkness outside the uncurtained window. “That he worked hard and they had big dreams. The problem was, he couldn’t make enough money so he never felt like he was worthy of her.”

Lizzie let out a breath she’d been holding for some time. “Is that why you pushed me away once I had no money of my own?” she asked quietly.

“What?” Con looked startled.

“Because you were afraid that you’d end up like your father, unable to support your family?”

“No,” Con said indignantly. “No way. I didn’t think about it like that at all. I’m nothing like my father…” His voice trailed off.

Lizzie placed her hand on his arm as strange heat flooded her chest. She looked at his face, at the confusion on his striking features. “You know, Conroy Beale, suddenly I understand you a whole lot better.”





Chapter 19