Honestly Love You (PASH: Russells/Chad)-Chap. 15
by caroline crane
 

As the song ended Whitney could hear someone stirring in the kitchen. Instinctively she knew it was her mother - if it had been her father he would have joined her in the living room and asked her what was wrong, and if it had been Simone she would already be making a nuisance of herself. Whitney wiped at her wet cheeks and stood up. She wasn't going to let her mother see her like this - she didn't want to have to lie, and she couldn't tell Eve the truth about why she was crying.

She walked toward the CD player on shaking legs and pressed stop, sighing regretfully as the beginnings of a new song halted. It had never made sense to her that her mother didn't seem to enjoy most kinds of music, but as with most of the idiosyncrasies in her family, she'd never questioned the reason why.

As soon as the stereo was off she turned and ran up the stairs, stopping in the bathroom long enough to splash some water on his face and hopefully make it look less like she'd been crying. She patted her face with a hand towel and stared at her reflection in the mirror, taking in the circles under her eyes and the lips that she'd always thought were too full. She hated the way her hair fell across her forehead, and she couldn't help wondering if she was just a little too thin.

She let out a frustrated sigh and turned away from the mirror. Suddenly she felt an overwhelming urge to be anywhere but trapped inside the house with her parents. She loved them more than anything, but somehow whenever she was with them she felt like she was walking on eggshells. In fact, the only time she remembered feeling completely relaxed in the past two years was the time that she spend with Sheridan, riding Katherine's Dream or just standing in the Crane stables, brushing her soft coat and talking softly to the animal.

She picked up the phone and started to call Theresa, but stopped halfway through dialing the number when she realized that meeting Theresa would mean listening to another chapter in the endless saga that was her and Ethan's relationship. She put the phone down and ran down the list of people she could call. Chad hated her, and she'd lost touch with most of the girls from high school when they all left for college. She yanked her hair back into a tight pony tail and wondered how she'd managed to lose touch with all her friends. All she had left was Theresa, she realized sadly as she pulled on a warm jacket and set off for the Book Café alone.

~

The cell phone rang out sharply, cutting through the peaceful silence of the passenger cabin of the Crane jet. Julian winced and pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket. "Julian Crane."

"Julian, you fool, have you taken care of the Sheridan situation yet?"

He sighed inwardly before answering his father - it would do him no good to let his father hear his frustration, he'd only call Julian weak and accuse him of not being fit to carry the Crane name. "No, Father, I haven't. I'm on my way to the Japan meeting. I'll be in New York over the weekend, as you'll recall."

"I know where you are, Julian. That doesn't mean you can shirk your family responsibilities. Now deal with your sister or I'll deal with her myself."

Julian swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say to placate his father. So far he'd managed to keep Alistair from doing too much damage to Sheridan's already fragile sense of self-worth, but he knew he couldn't hold him off forever. True, hiring the imposter had been his idea, and he'd found it amusing at the time, but the fact was that he didn't care whether or not his sister dated Luis. In fact, he'd always thought that if Sheridan and Luis fell in love, Luis would be less likely to want to delve into the Crane role in Martin's disappearance.

But Alistair insisted that Julian continue to try to break them up, regardless of Sheridan's happiness. Julian and his sister had never been terribly close, and it was fairly obvious that she didn't have a high opinion of his approach to life. But she was his sister and he'd tried in his way to shield her from the worst of Alistair's influence.

"I'll take care of it," Julian heard himself say before the phone went dead as Alistair hung up on him. He flipped the phone closed and put it back in his pocket, settling further into his chair as he stared out the window of the plane. Even 10,000 feet above the earth he wasn't safe from Alistair's reach - the simple fact was that his father owned him, body and soul. Even after he was passed over as the heir to the throne he was still dependent on Alistair, even more so now that he didn't stand a chance of inheriting the company. His fortune and his future were entirely dependent on the whims of his father and his oldest son now, and Ethan was treading on thin ice with his devotion to Theresa.

Julian closed his eyes and thought of all the times he'd pushed Ethan and Theresa together. Why had he been so hell-bent on forcing his son to be the same heartless womanizer that he'd become? For years he'd entertained the foolish notion that he could somehow protect his children from Alistair's influence, shield them from the stranglehold he had over Julian and Sheridan's lives. But as he gazed out over the clouds beneath him he knew it was no use - he couldn't even save himself.

So he'd pushed Ethan to bed Theresa because he wanted to drag his son down with him? That couldn't be it, could it? He felt a wave of disgust and self-loathing boil up inside him and his eyes flew open. He gulped air and tried to force him mind to go blank rather than dwell on what he'd become. The kind of father he was, the kind of man he was…he could barely make himself feel anymore, let alone care what happened to anyone around him. At least that's what he told himself - that he didn't care, that he couldn't care because of the life he'd led since Eve chose money over him.

He wondered if he'd have done the same thing to his first-born son if he'd lived. Would he have raised him in the Crane mansion, married Eve and grown to loathe her the way he and Ivy loathed one another? Would they have raised a son that was ashamed of him, or would his life had turned out differently? An image of Whitney floated into his mind - she was a perfect example of good breeding, he admitted grudgingly. He wondered how much of that was a result of Eve's careful grooming of her daughters, and how much was T.C.'s influence. Try as he might to look down on the entire family, he couldn't bring himself to despise the child. She'd seemed so gentle and good-natured, with just a hint of sadness behind her dark eyes. He caught himself wondering if his son would have looked anything like her and closed his eyes again, willing the memories away as he reached for his glass of brandy.

~

"Baby, I'm home," T.C. called as he let himself in the kitchen door, but when he looked around he found the room deserted. His brow furrowed as he wondered where she could be. There were freshly washed vegetables on the counter and the signs that she'd been starting dinner, but she was nowhere in sight. He dropped his gym bag and his briefcase on a chair and headed upstairs. "Eve?"

His heart began to pound a little harder as he reached the top of the stairs and still got no answer. The house was never this deserted at this hour of the day, at least one of the girls ought to be home by now, and he knew Eve had been there long enough to make a mess in the kitchen. It wasn't like her to stop in the middle of something, unless she had an emergency at the hospital.

He opened the closed bedroom door, expecting to find it empty. He planned to pick up the extension next to their bed and call the hospital to see if his wife had been called in, but as he swung the door open he saw her, seated cross-legged in the center of their bed, surrounded by piles of baby clothes. She had Simone's baby book open in her lap and she was leafing through the pages, stopping to caress each picture and strand of hair with her fingertips as she passed.

"Eve? Honey, is everything alright?"

She glanced up at him and smiled through her tears. "I'm fine, T.C. Just being silly."

He slid down onto the bed next to her and kissed her cheek softly, sliding his arm around her waist and looking over her shoulder at the book in front of her. "She sure was a cute baby."

Eve laughed and flipped back to the beginning of the book. "Do you remember that?"

He smiled down at the picture she'd pointed to, memories flooding back to him at the sight of a smiling Simone toddling into his outstretched arms. "Simone's first steps," he murmured. "I've never seen a more determined kid, she was born ready to run."

"She was just trying to get her sea legs so she could start shopping," Eve laughed. She closed the book shut and set it aside, pulling Whitney's baby book forward and opening it gingerly. "What a beautiful baby."

"She always was stunning," T.C. agreed, gazing down at their oldest daughter's first baby picture. "Most kids come out of the hospital all wrinkled and scary-looking, but not Whitney. She was born a knock-out."

Eve smiled and wiped away a single tear. "She was here when I got home, I heard her in the living room, listening to that CD of hers again. But then the music stopped, and when I went upstairs to say hello she was gone. She's been so distant lately, T.C. I'm worried about her."

"I know, baby, so am I," he whispered, stroking her hair reassuringly as he gazed at her profile.

"Do you really think all the time she's been spending at the Crane mansion is good for her?"

T.C. sighed and let his hand fall away from her neck. He knew it was hard for her to watch Whitney start to pull away from her, it must be as hard for her to let go as it was for him. "Yeah, I do. Sheridan's a good person, and I think she's really good for Whitney. And she seems to really enjoy the horses."

"Couldn't we just get her a horse? People board horses all the time," she said. Her voice was pleading, even a little desperate as she looked into his eyes.

T.C. laughed and shook his head at her. "Baby, she's gotta grow up sometime. Besides, she'll be in college in a year, and then what are we gonna do with a horse?"

Eve sighed and closed the baby book, carefully laying it on top of Simone's. "I know," she whispered, although every fiber of her being was railing against the concept of either of her daughters growing up and leaving the safety of her house. "I know."

~

Chad's thoughts kept wandering back to his conversation with Hank as he cleared tables and rang up sales. The crowd in the Book Café had begun to thin, and as it got slower he had more and more time to dwell on what Hank had discovered about his past. He kept coming back to the same place - the kid in that car had been born around the same time as him, and he was connected to Orville. That crazy old man had given Chad the run-around for months, then he'd just disappeared off the face of the earth. But even if Hank could find him, he had no confidence that he'd be able to get Orville to tell him the truth. The old man had seemed hell-bent on taking the secret of Chad's origins to the grave, no matter how much it hurt Chad not to know where he'd come from.

He sighed his frustration and looked around the café. In a few hours his shift would be over and he'd be free to go home, but the thought of going home to that run-down one-room hole depressed him. The last thing he wanted was to lie on his lumpy mattress and stare at the ceiling, watching the paint peel as he wondered what Hank would turn up next.

The front door opened and Chad turned instinctively toward it in time to see Whitney walk in, her cheeks pink from the cold. For a split second he forgot all about being angry and disappointed with her, and all he could think of was how beautiful she looked. A second later she caught his eye, however, and the hurt and shame he saw there reminded him of why they weren't friends anymore.

"Hey, Chad," she breathed as she approached the counter, smiling shyly. If she could just get him to forgive her for her one mistake, maybe they could get back to where they'd been before Kay got involved and ruined everything.

"Hey," he echoed, dropping his eyes to the counter and wiping away invisible crumbs. "Can I get you something?"

"Um…yeah, latte," she stammered, doing her best to keep her composure as she reacted to the sharpness in his voice. Try as she might to get used to the coldness between them, it still made her stomach clench and her throat tighten. She blinked back tears and wandered over to a table in the center of the room, sinking into the chair as she wondered why she'd come here of all places.

She felt a hand on her shoulder suddenly and her heart leapt into her throat, then fell all the way to the bottom of her stomach as she turned to find Sheridan looking down at her, concern all over her face. "Whitney, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she managed to answer, forcing a weak smile as Sheridan sank into the seat across from her. "Just thinking."

Sheridan fixed her with a stern glare, her pretty face marred by a frown. "Don't give me that," she said, keeping her voice low so no one would overhear her lecturing Whitney. "You're not fine, it's written all over your face. Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?"

Whitney started to shake her head no, but as luck would have it Chad picked that exact moment to set her coffee down in front of her. She kept her eyes glued to the table, but as his hand passed into her frame of vision the tears began to fall. She heard Sheridan thank Chad for her, and she could feel his eyes on her as she buried her face in her hands, determined not to let him see her cry. Once Sheridan got rid of him she reached across the table and gently pulled Whitney's hands away from her face.

"Whitney, what's wrong?"

"Everything," Whitney choked out through her tears. She looked into Sheridan's eyes and the sympathy reflected back to her was almost too much to bear. "My whole life is falling apart and I don't know what to do."

Her hands were still gripped in Sheridan's as the older woman stood up and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, let's go someplace a little more private," she suggested, glancing over at Chad as she spoke. "We'll go to my cottage, I'll make you some tea."

All Whitney could do was nod dumbly as Sheridan helped her put her jacket back on and led her out of the Book Café. She could feel Sheridan's arm around her and heard the words of comfort she murmured as they made their way to her car, but her mind refused to focus on anything except the empty feeling inside of her. She ran her hands over her wet cheeks again as she slid into the passenger seat of Sheridan's BMW and wondered if she'd ever feel better again.