by Cindy Kirk
“That’s right.” His smile faded. “Too bad. I thought it’d be fun to go out for pizza.”
Even though his expression was innocent, Kate wondered if he’d really forgotten about her date. “Perhaps another time.”
“Dr. Kate and I looked at pictures, Daddy.” Chloe tugged on his sleeve. “In one of them she looks just like me.”
Joel lifted a brow.
“I had on a skating outfit similar to the one Chloe owns.” Kate waved a dismissive hand, wishing she could think of a way to graciously push them both out the door.
“No, no, it wasn’t the dress,” Chloe insisted. “When I looked at the picture I thought it was me.”
Joel rocked back on his heels. “This I have to see.”
“It’s in the shoe box.” Chloe turned toward the sofa, but Kate caught her arm.
“Sweetie, how about we show your dad the picture next time? I have company coming and—” Kate paused “—here he is.”
Dr. Benedict Campbell paused in the open doorway. Impeccably attired in a dark suit and gray tie, his appearance a sharp contrast to Joel’s dusty work clothes.
Ben was a little older than Kate, with hair more black than brown and gray eyes that could turn hard as steel in an instant. His build reminded Kate of Joel’s, tall with broad shoulders and lean hips. Unlike Mitzi, who detested the man, Kate enjoyed his company. But she wasn’t attracted to him.
“Perfect timing,” she said with a smile. “Let me grab my wrap from the closet and I’m ready to leave.”
Even though it probably wasn’t smart to leave Joel and Ben together, the evenings had started cooling down and she knew she’d regret not taking a coat.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever met my daughter, Chloe.” Joel rested his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Chloe, this is Dr. Benedict Campbell.”
“How do you do, Chloe?” Ben smiled. “Who is that you’re holding?”
Chloe smiled shyly. “This is Lottie Rose. She was Dr. Kate’s doll when she was little. She gave her to me.”
“You and Dr. Kate must be good friends to have her give you such a special gift.”
Kate heard Ben’s comment from the other room and she groaned. Nothing good could come out of this line of questioning.
“I love Dr. Kate very, very much,” Chloe said. “I wish she was my mommy.”
Kate stopped in her tracks, a lump rising to her throat. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears that sprang to her eyes.
By the time Kate reached the living room, Chloe was telling Benedict about the picture.
“Sounds interesting.” Ben turned to Kate. “I’d like to see it.”
“Dr. Kate can’t show it to us now.” Chloe shook her head. “’Cause she’s going to the party with you.”
The tone in the child’s voice made it clear she didn’t approve.
“I definitely want to see the picture,” Joel said. “Bring it to church tomorrow.”
“If I make it,” Kate murmured.
“You have to come,” Chloe wailed. “I’m singing in the choir.”
Dear God, could this get any more awkward?
“Time to leave,” Kate announced, shooing Chloe and Joel out the front door, then bringing up the rear with Benedict.
Only when she was in his black Mercedes and they were gliding down the highway to the Spring Gulch Country Club did the tightness leave Kate’s chest. Later, when she got home tonight, she’d decide what she was going to do about the picture. But for now she wasn’t going to give it a second thought.
Benedict turned off the highway and slanted a glance in her direction. “You and Joel Dennes seem very close.”
Kate’s smile froze on her face. “He thinks of me as a friend of the family.”
“Not if the look he shot me was any indication.” Ben laughed. “I felt as if I was going out with a married woman.”
What could Kate do but laugh along with him? But the incident in her foyer set the tone for the entire evening. By the time Ben dropped her off at her house at a respectable 11:00 p.m., Kate knew something had to change.
* * *
Mitzi plopped down on the sofa next to Kate, an oversize coffee mug in her hand. “How was your date with Benedict Arnold, oh, I mean, Campbell?”
“I don’t understand why you don’t like the guy.” Kate leaned back, cradling her cup between her palms. “He’s very nice. Reserved but nice.”
“Arrogant.” Mitzi spat the word. “Egotistical jerk.”
“Ben?” Kate frowned, trying to reconcile the man she’d spent the evening with and the one her friend described.
“Lots of people think he’s an okay guy,” Mitzi grudgingly admitted. “He and I just aren’t a good combination.”
Kate took a sip of coffee, finding Mitzi’s response very interesting. She hadn’t seen her friend show so much emotion over a man in, well, never.
“How come you skipped church?” Mitzi lifted a perfectly tweezed brow. “Wasn’t Chloe singing?”
“Her dad will be there.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Mitzi slanted a sideways glance. “By the way, you look like hell this morning.”
Kate raked a hand through her hair. This morning, she’d pulled on her oldest pair of yoga pants and a faded blue T-shirt that should have been relegated to the trash years ago. Although she’d brushed her teeth, she hadn’t bothered with makeup. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Well, that explains the raccoon eyes.” Despite Mitzi’s flippant tone, Kate sensed her friend was concerned. “Did something happen with Benedict? Because even though he’s the head of the group, I won’t put up with him—”
“It’s not him, Mitz. It’s Joel.”
Mitzi’s eyes widened in surprise. “I thought things were good between you two.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that continuing to see him was a mistake.” Kate glanced down at the picture she’d pulled out this morning. The one Chloe had wanted her to show her dad.
“But you’re only dating him. You’re not sleeping with him. Or has that changed?”
“That hasn’t changed.” Kate slouched back against the cushion. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier if we were and I could tell myself it’s just sex.”
“I don’t under—”
“Yesterday I overheard Chloe tell Joel she loved me and wished I was her mommy.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Kate expelled a ragged breath. “I know what I want, Mitzi. I want it all, but I can’t have it all. And soon I won’t have any of it.”
Mitzi leaned over and peered into Kate’s cup. “What are you drinking?”
Kate couldn’t even manage a smile. And when Mitzi set down her cup and took her hand, she couldn’t hide her tears.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Mitzi said softly.
“I can’t be Joel’s friend anymore, Mitzi. It’s too hard. I love him. I know he cares for me, but caring isn’t enough. That’s why I started dating again. But when I was out with Benedict, all I could think of was how I wished I was with Joel.”
“Then maybe you should just… see only Joel.”
“Don’t you understand? Even if he were willing to fall in love again, it couldn’t be with me. There can never be anything between us.”
“Because he doesn’t know that you’re Chloe’s birth mother.”
Kate nodded. “How could two people build a life together with such a lie between them?”
Mitzi lifted the mug but didn’t drink. “Then I guess there’s only one solution to your problem.”
“And that is?”
“You’re going to have to tell him, Kate. Come clean and tell him you’re Chloe’s mother.”
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want to go for a run with me?” Mitzi stood by the open door, making one last appeal.
Kate shook her head. “I’m going to take a shower. By the time you get back, I’ll be perfectly presentable.”
“Then I’m
taking you to lunch,” Mitzi said. “And I don’t want any argument. We’ll check out that new Mexican place on the highway.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
Kate rose from the sofa as soon as Mitzi left to put her cup in the dishwasher, too restless to sit any longer. On her way back to the living room she heard the front door open. Trust Mitzi not to take no for an answer. “I don’t care how nice it is out there. If you keep badgering me, I’m not going—”
Her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t her temporary roommate who stood in the foyer but Joel.
“Mitzi told me to let myself in.” His eyes widened. Apparently she looked worse than she realized. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She gestured to a chair. “Please, make yourself at home.”
He had her at a definite disadvantage. He’d obviously come from church. Every hair on his head was in place and instead of attire more suitable for a second-rate yoga studio, he wore dark brown dress pants and a cream-colored dress shirt that put her faded tee to shame.
His gaze searched hers. “Chloe and I missed you at church.”
“Yeah, well, I had a late night.” Despite drinking a glass of warm milk at midnight, it had been close to three before she’d fallen asleep.
A muscle in Joel’s jaw jumped. “Sounds like things went well with Benedict.”
“Benedict?” Kate’s sluggish brain didn’t immediately make the connection. Then it hit her. He thought she’d been up late carousing with the doctor. She almost laughed. “He had me home by eleven. I just had trouble falling asleep. Too many things on my mind.”
Joel looked pleased. “Eleven, eh?”
Kate picked at a thread on her fraying shirt. “I’ve been thinking we should have a talk.”
His eyes turned watchful. The smile slipped from his lips. “Sounds ominous.”
“Not really.” She glanced at the clock. “Do you have to leave soon?”
“Oh, you mean to pick up Chloe?” He shook his head. “She’s going home with Sarabeth after Sunday school.”
“Okay, well…” This was it. The perfect opportunity. The confession stood poised on the tip of Kate’s tongue but she couldn’t get the words out. How do you say “I’m the woman who gave up Chloe. I’ve been lying to you both for over two years”? There certainly weren’t any etiquette books that dealt with this situation. At least none that Kate had ever seen.
“Hey, is this the picture Chloe couldn’t stop talking about?” Joel picked up the photo from the coffee table and held it up. The smile on his face vanished.
Perhaps a confession wasn’t going to be necessary after all.
Chapter Seventeen
Joel stared down at the picture in his hand. It was an older-style photograph. A thin dark-haired girl dressed in a pink skating outfit stared back at him. Chloe was right. If he didn’t know this was Kate, he’d think it was his daughter.
How was it possible that they looked so much alike? A cold chill washed over him as the memories began flooding back. The baby’s parents are both medical students, the attorney had said. The father wanted no contact. The mother requested regular reports on the child.
Although Kate was from Pittsburgh, she’d been a medical student at UC Irvine around the time Chloe was born. Just down the road from the hospital in Laguna Hills.
He lifted his gaze from the photograph. “You’re Chloe’s mother.”
For a second Joel thought Kate might deny it. Thought he was crazy for even suggesting it. Then she nodded.
His blood turned to ice. “You used me to get to Chloe.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
He clenched his fists and counted to ten. It wasn’t like that. Yeah, right. As if he’d believe anything she said now. Not after she’d looked him in the eye for almost two years and lied every time she pretended to be his friend. He narrowed his gaze. “You knew she was your daughter, yet you didn’t say a word.”
When Kate clasped her hands together, they were trembling. He couldn’t summon up an ounce of sympathy for her distress.
“When I signed those adoption papers I promised to stay out of your life.”
“That’s right. And you went back on your word. You came here. You became a part of her life.” Joel raked a hand through his hair. How had he not seen it? Chloe had Kate’s eyes. Her hair. He’d been stupid. No, gullible. Sucked in by a pretty smile and sweet lies.
Joel fought to rein in his anger. At her. At him. At the whole situation. “How did you find us? Those records were supposed to have remained sealed until Chloe was eighteen.”
Kate shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I hired a detective. Amy had let slip some clues to your whereabouts in the letters she’d sent over the years. That’s how he located you.”
“So much for your promise to stay out of her life.”
“What did you expect me to do?” She straightened and her hazel eyes flashed. “The reports had stopped. Suddenly. Without warning. After eight years of regular letters and pictures, I got nothing. I was out of my mind with worry, imagining something had happened to her. I had to know she was okay.”
Joel refused to get sidetracked or let her heap the blame for this mess on him.
“Moving to Jackson Hole wasn’t a coincidence,” he said in a flat tone. “You came here with a purpose. You came here to insinuate yourself into her life. You decided the best way to get to her was through me.”
“No.” Kate leaped to her feet. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re darn right I don’t understand.”
Kate was willing to admit she’d made some mistakes. Still, she wasn’t the only one who’d broken their word. “Did you ever consider that if you’d sent the reports you promised, I wouldn’t have had to come looking for her?”
“I was a little busy.” His eyes were cold as steel, his tone heavy with sarcasm. “My wife had died, I was in the middle of planning a major move and I had a little girl who needed me.”
Kate wasn’t about to let him dismiss the months of needless pain he’d caused her. She hadn’t slept a full night until the detective had finally located Chloe and told her she was okay.
“I lived for those reports.” She met his gaze head on. “I haven’t received one in over two years.”
Something flickered in Joel’s eyes. “Time may have gotten away from me, but that doesn’t excuse you lying to me. To Chloe. To everyone.”
Kate exhaled a ragged breath. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that moving to Jackson had been a mistake. “When I came here I planned to keep my distance. I didn’t know I’d end up with Chloe as one of my patients. Nor did I know that the community was so small and tight-knit. Aside from being her doctor, I never imagined we’d end up with the same group of friends.”
He crossed his arms. “And our affair?”
“We shared the same goal. To scratch an itch that wouldn’t go away,” Kate retorted, even as her heart cried out against such a simplistic explanation. Even though they’d probably both vehemently deny it, their affair had been about much more than sexual hunger.
“You said you liked me. I got the feeling you might even love me. Was that a lie, too?”
Kate’s head was spinning. It felt as if the second she answered one question he popped out another. She wished he’d slow down. Give her a chance to catch her breath and gather her thoughts. But the set to his jaw and the look in his eyes said he wanted answers. Now.
“Of course I liked you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “That doesn’t mean I ever thought you’d be a good partner for me.”
“Because of the lie.”
“Because I never stood a chance of measuring up to Saint Amy.” Kate lifted her chin. “I grew up in the shadow of my sister. I could never be with a man who thought I was second-best.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about that. I like my women honest.”
At that moment Kate hated him. Hated his arrogant judgment. Hated him for mak
ing her feel as though her mother had been right all along.
“Where do we go from here?” Kate said finally.
“With the truth. I’ll tell Chloe that you’re her birth mother. There’s bound to be fallout, but I’ll deal with it.”
“I can be there—”
“No.” His hand cut a sharp swath through the air. “You’ve already done quite enough.”
Before she could say another word, he was on his feet and out the door.
Kate sank back into the sofa. “Well, that went well,” she muttered, then promptly burst into tears.
* * *
Joel hadn’t even made it to the curb when he realized he’d let his anger make an important decision. Telling Chloe that Kate was her mother needed to be handled with kid gloves. She was sure to have a lot of questions. Questions only Kate could answer.
He turned on his heel and headed back to the townhouse, opening the door without knocking. She still sat on the sofa, her head in her hands.
“Kate.”
She looked up, her lashes wet with tears.
Hardening his heart, Joel crossed the room and dropped into the chair he’d vacated only minutes earlier. “I’ve decided we need to tell Chloe together.”
She simply stared.
“She may have questions that I can’t answer.”
“Like, ‘Why did my mom give me up?’”
“Yeah, like that,” he said absently as he imagined the shock on Chloe’s face, the tears and questions that were sure to follow. “I want to make sure she understands that she wasn’t a throwaway, that she was very much wanted.”
“A throwaway?” Kate’s voice rose. Anger snapped in her eyes. “You have no idea how hard—”
“Seven o’clock. My house.” Joel wasn’t interested in any more explanations, any more excuses. She could give those to Chloe. And they better be good.
Kate gestured toward the door with her head. “Show yourself out.”
Joel gave a curt nod. He covered the distance to the door in several long strides, then turned. “If you’re not there, I’ll tell her myself.”
“I’ll be there.”
He saw the pain beneath her lifted chin and stoic features. For a second he longed to sit on the sofa and pull her close. Comfort her. Assure her that all would be okay.
