Terry knew about Erin. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying you’ve found your daughter and you’re a fool if you up and leave the chance to know her, let her know you. Erin is a sweet and loving girl. She needs her dad. Whether or not you and Miss Jacquie work things out, you’ve got a right to be a good parent to your own flesh and blood.”
The gasp they heard was small, but it seemed to shake the whole barn. Rhys jerked around to stare at the doorway, where a slight, sturdy figure stood silhouetted against the gray afternoon light. He got to his feet, reached out.
“Erin…”
She backed up a step, and another. And then, before he could reach her, she turned and ran out into the rain.
JACQUIE WATCHED in the rearview mirror as Erin dashed into Rhys’s barn and then back to the truck.
“Got it?”
With her face to the window, Erin held up the award which had sent her to bed last night so joyful. The blue ribbon trembled between her fingers.
“Are you cold?” Jacquie reached out to turn up the heater. “I said you should wear your coat. Moms always know best.”
When Erin didn’t respond, she glanced over. The ribbon had fallen into her lap, and she was still staring out the window, with her fingers pressed against her lips.
“Did something happen? Was Andrew in the barn?” He was the only person Jacquie could think of who might have upset Erin this much.
When she didn’t get an answer, she put a hand on Erin’s leg. “Honey, are you okay?”
Her daughter moved away from her touch. Fear settled in Jacquie’s stomach, began to grow. She didn’t push further, but clenched her teeth and concentrated on getting home. Fast.
Inside the house, Hurry greeted them as if they’d been gone for weeks, instead of a couple of hours. Jacquie stooped to pet the dog. Erin walked through the kitchen toward her bedroom.
“Wait, Erin.” Jacquie followed her into the living room. “I think you need to tell me what happened in the barn. You’re obviously unhappy about it.”
The girl stopped and, after a moment, turned. She looked like a stranger again today. The effect had nothing to do with makeup and a new dress, but with the expression in her eyes.
“Erin—”
“You lied to me.” Her voice was that of an adult. “My whole life, you lied to me.”
The fear flowed into Jacquie’s chest, began to rise up to her throat. “What happened?”
“I heard them talking.” For a second her face softened with wonder, only to quickly harden again into a frozen mask. “Rhys Lewellyn is my father.” Not a question.
Oh, God, help me. “Yes.”
Erin nodded and pivoted on her heel, headed again to her room.
Jacquie stayed where she was. “Would you like me to explain?”
At the door of her room, Erin paused. “I think I get the picture. You slept with him and got pregnant. He didn’t want me, didn’t want to marry you, so you left and went to Oklahoma so nobody here would be ashamed of you. Ashamed of me. Mark Archer must have been a nice guy, to marry you when you were already expecting a baby.”
So the last blow was hers to deliver after all. “There was no Mark Archer. I invented him…to make things look better.”
“Got it. Thanks.” She went into her room and carefully closed the door. Jacquie heard the lock click.
Her legs collapsed underneath her. She sat down hard on the floor. Hurry came to cuddle in her lap and Jacquie buried her face in the dog’s soft coat.
The phone rang several times as she remained where she’d fallen, unable to summon the strength to move. Shadows claimed the room as the afternoon passed, and she realized the horses needed to be fed. She’d neglected them enough this week as it was, without making them wait in the cold rain to eat. Ignoring the blinking light on the answering machine, Jacquie went out to take care of her animals.
When she returned to the house, Erin’s door was still closed. Hurry sniffed at the bottom and whined, but didn’t get an answer. In the kitchen, Jacquie prepared the dog’s food, always aware of that red message signal, knowing who the caller must be. She wasn’t ready to talk with Rhys yet.
When the phone rang again, she almost let it go unanswered. At the last moment, though, she picked up. “Hello?”
“Jacquie.” Rhys sounded shaken, completely unlike himself. “Have you talked to Erin?”
“More or less.”
“Terry and I were in the office. We didn’t know she’d come into the barn.”
“She’d forgotten her ribbon.”
“Is she okay?”
She gave a harsh laugh. “What do you think?”
“I want to talk to her.”
Her temper surged. “Just move in, Rhys, take over. Don’t mind me—I’m only the person who’s been here for her the last fourteen years.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Of course it is. You’re ready to be her daddy now. How kind of you. Well, thanks but no thanks. Practice your fathering skills on your own teenager. We’re fine without you.”
She hung up on him and buried her face in her hands. The phone rang again, and again, but she didn’t answer.
ANDREW CAME INTO the gathering room as his dad hung up the phone. The look on his face telegraphed major bad news.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sit down.”
He glanced at Terry, who jerked his head to back up the command. “Okay, then.” Slouched in the corner of the sofa, he looked at his dad again. “What did I do wrong now?”
“Nothing. I need to tell you…some pretty painful truths.” His chuckle sounded like the clank of a rusty chain. “A good example of ‘do what I say, not what I do.’”
“I’m all ears.” He’d been wondering when the shit would hit the fan.
“Erin Archer is…” He seemed afraid to say the words.
So Andrew did. “My half sister?”
His dad stared at him, his eyebrows low over his eyes. “You know?”
“I guessed.”
The great Lewellyn dropped into the armchair by the fireplace. “How?”
“We look the same. And she’s a lot like you. Rides like you.” Andrew shrugged. “The dates fit. That explanation made more sense than pure coincidence giving all of us black hair and the same blue eyes.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“It’s been a little crazy since I figured it out.”
“Yes.” After a while, his dad looked over. “Erin knows now. Her mother…” He lifted a hand, as if the words wouldn’t come.
“She didn’t tell Erin, I got that much.”
“And the man she said was Erin’s father didn’t exist.”
“Oh, man. That’s really bad. Has Erin gone ballistic?”
“Would you?”
Andrew considered. “Yeah.” Given the same situation, he knew his own choice would be to run. Escape from the miserable situation, get as far away as possible. He’d tried it with his mom, which was one reason he’d ended up with his dad.
Was his sister like him in that way, too?
When the phone rang a few minutes later, his dad snatched up the receiver. “Jacquie? Yes?” His face turned white. “When? How? Have you called the police? What can we do?”
He’d never seen the great Lewellyn so out of control. Helpless, angry, desperate—all at once. Just watching made Andrew nervous. Things weren’t supposed to be like this.
“I want to help…she is my daughter, as well…” Mrs. Archer’s voice could be heard, though not her words. But the gist of the message came through. His dad’s shoulders slumped. “If that’s what you want. Yes, I promise. Please call me when you’ve found her.” Without a goodbye, he hung up.
Then he looked from Andrew to Terry, and back to Andrew. “Erin’s run away.” His voice shook. “Her mother has no idea where she might have gone.”
Andrew thought about it for a minute. “You don’t suppose,” he said uneasily, “she w
ould come here?”
SHE’D CALLED RHYS first, in a blind panic after finding Erin’s room empty, the window open, a few clothes and her overnight bag gone. Her daughter had sneaked out of the house rather than face her. All Jacquie’s worst nightmares were coming true.
Hysteria stood at her shoulder, but she had no time for falling apart. She did have faith that Erin wouldn’t just strike out for somewhere unknown. Surely she had gone to someone else, someone safe. The question was simply…who?
Her mother answered on the first ring. “Hi, Jacquie. Thanks for calling back. I was beginning to wonder if you’d got my message.”
“Message? I didn’t see it.”
“We need to talk, the sooner the better. I met—”
“Sorry, but this is an emergency. Have you seen Erin this afternoon?” She blurted the question without any sort of finesse. “Has she shown up at your door?”
“Of course not.” After a pause, she asked, “Don’t you know where she is?”
“Um…no. She left her room through the window. I haven’t seen her since about two, and didn’t know she was gone until a few minutes ago.”
“Five hours? What in the world happened?”
She would have to explain. But not now. “We had a disagreement, but not worth this kind of stunt.” Another lie. Would they never end?
Her mother’s voice sharpened. “Surely she wouldn’t set out in the rain and cold to come this far.”
“Just call me if she gets there, okay?”
“Maybe your daddy should drive out to look for Erin along the road. He’s standing right here, ready to go.”
Jacquie closed her eyes. The help would be welcome. But she couldn’t depend on her parents to solve her problems. “N-not yet, okay? I’ll get back to you.”
“I’ll be waiting by the phone. And we still need to talk.”
“Sure.” She cut the connection and put her head in her hands. Soon everyone would know the truth. Her mistakes and misjudgments, her lies, would be out in the open. All of her friends and family would look at her with dismay…Kate, Abby, Phoebe—
“Phoebe.” Jacquie punched the autodial number on her phone. “Phoebe, it’s Jacquie. Erin’s with you, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” Her own relief was echoed in her friend’s voice. “I would’ve called you, but she threatened to leave if I did. I’ve been sitting here praying for the phone to ring so I didn’t have to break my promise.”
“Thank God.” The tears that had refused to flow dripped down Jacquie’s cheeks. “Oh, thank God. Is she all right?”
“Physically, at least. She fell asleep on the couch about an hour ago. What in the world happened? Why did she run away?”
Another lie might have served well enough. But Jacquie had run out of lies. “Phoebe, I have to tell you…about Erin. She found out this afternoon that—that Rhys…” The words were unbelievably hard to say.
After a long pause, Phoebe said them for her. “Rhys is Erin’s father?”
“Yes.”
“That’s been the real problem, hasn’t it? Does he know?”
“I told him, just after he arrived in January.”
Another long silence. “So you left New York, met Mark Archer in Oklahoma and married him. Did he know…?”
Jacquie drew a deep breath. “There was no Mark Archer. I made him up. My fake husband.”
Phoebe gasped. “You aren’t—weren’t married?”
“No.”
“All this time, I thought…”
“That’s what I wanted everybody to think. So I lied. Even to you.”
“Oh.” The taint of deception hung in the dead air on the phone line. Phoebe didn’t make a sound. Jacquie wanted to excuse, to explain. But there didn’t seem to be anything left to say.
Except, “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Already, Phoebe’s voice had taken on a reserve that was entirely new in their relationship.
“I’m not sure I can ever make this right again—with Erin, or with you. But I’m so grateful you were there, and that she’s safe. I’ll be right over—”
“No.” Phoebe’s soft voice was stiff, unyielding. “I think you should leave her be, at least for tonight.”
“But—”
“Erin’s distraught, Jacquie. Devastated, if you want the whole truth. She told me absolutely nothing, but I can see it all in her face. She needs time to think without being pressured.”
“I would not pressure her.”
“Just your presence, at this point, is pressure. I’ll take good care of her, I promise. I’ll get her to school, and bring her home with me. My sincere advice is to give her a respite.”
A respite? From me? In that moment, Jacquie distinctly felt her heart break. Not with a wrenching pain, but with a soft, despairing sigh.
But she knew good advice when she heard it. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll leave Erin alone with you—for a day or so, anyway. Let me know what’s going on, please?”
“I will. Why don’t you try to get some rest now? I’ll talk to you tomorrow when I get to work.”
Now that she knew Erin was safe, she couldn’t control the fear. “Wait—we could meet for breakfast at the diner, as usual. And I could talk to Erin then.”
“Too soon, Jacquie. Too soon.” Phoebe sighed. “Good night.” She cut off before another word could be said.
Jacquie let the phone fall to her lap. She would have to call Rhys and her parents, to let them know Erin was safe.
But she sat still for a moment in her empty house, listening to her own pounding pulse. She’d never realized, until tonight, how loud silence could be.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CALLING HER PARENTS again proved to be unnecessary. Becky Lennon showed up at Jacquie’s door only fifteen minutes after they’d talked.
“Erin’s okay,” Jacquie said immediately. “She went to Phoebe’s house, just down the road.”
“Thank God.” Her mother sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace. “So many terrible things happen. I could imagine…” She shook her head. “Let’s just be thankful. Phone your daddy to let him know.”
Jacquie made coffee while she talked with her father and brought in two mugs when she came back to the living room. “He said he’ll wait up for you.”
Her mother smiled. “He always wants to know I’m in the house before he can sleep.” She took a sip of coffee. “When is Erin coming home?”
“I’m not sure. Phoebe suggested giving her some space to sort things out.”
“What things?”
“Mom, I…” The second time wasn’t any easier. “I haven’t been honest with you about…Erin.”
“Let me save you some trouble, here. Soon as I saw Rhys Lewellyn yesterday, I knew what must have happened. Erin’s his baby, isn’t she?”
Feeling her face heat up, Jacquie nodded.
“I met Andrew, too, and he and Erin are alike as two peas in a pod.”
“I know.”
“And they’re about the same age, so I presume…” Her mother set her mug on the coffee table and clasped her hands together. “I presume you were…together…while he was still married.” Her countenance faltered, and she looked at the picture of Erin on the mantel.
Jacquie swallowed hard. “I thought, at first, he was divorced. Before we…slept together, I asked him and he said his wife had left him for another man. He’d filed, but the divorce wasn’t final yet. Then his wife came back, pregnant.”
“Our church doesn’t recognize divorce, Jacquie.”
“I know.”
“So he decided to stay with her, even though you were expecting his baby?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Oh.” After a long pause, Becky said, “You made up Mark Archer, didn’t you?”
That insight surprised her. “How did you know?”
“I never saw a single picture of him, even when the baby was newly born. What kind of woman wouldn’t keep a picture of her dead husband in the house?
And since you aren’t that kind of woman, I had to believe he wasn’t real.”
“You’ve known that all these years?” Guilt and relief washed through her. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I tried not to think about it too much. I figured maybe this was just something else I didn’t understand, like you going all the way to New York to begin with, going to Oklahoma afterward. So many things you did never made sense to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her mother moved to sit beside her on the couch. “I don’t say I was always right and you were always wrong, honey. I’m just saying we’re so different, sometimes I don’t know what to think about you. I’d never heard of a girl shoeing horses, until you told me that was what you planned. And now here you are, a successful businesswoman, admired and needed by the people you work for.”
“You wanted me to be a nurse.”
“Because I wanted to be a nurse when I was young.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Becky joined her hand with Jacquie’s. “I fell in love with a handsome young farmer. Instead of going to school, I started cooking and cleaning and having babies. It’s a good life, and I wouldn’t change it if I could.”
“I’d change everything about my life right now, just to get Erin home and make her happy.”
“I know you would. She ran away because she found out that Mr. Lewellyn is her daddy?”
“I think she ran away because she realized I’d lied to her for her whole life.”
“Why did you not tell her the truth? Why didn’t you tell us? Were we so…so hard?”
Jacquie got to her feet and walked to the window. “No. I knew I wasn’t what you wanted, but—”
“Such hogwash. You were always yourself. What else would we want in a daughter?”
The Fake Husband Page 18
