Caught in the Act (The Davenports)

by Law, Kim

  “It sounds perfect.”

  “Good. Can you find a place that will be private?”

  “I can.”

  “Okay. I’ll text you later and we’ll settle on a time.”

  Cat nodded once again. She was going to meet her daughter. In three days. “Patricia?” she said quickly, before the woman could hang up.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” Cat said sincerely. “Thank you for doing this now, and thank you for taking Annabelle back then. For giving her a good life. I never told you that before, but I could tell you would love her as much as I did. I wanted that for her.”

  “I do. She’s my world. And I actually thank you every day. Now you go tell her father about her. I worry that might be a tough pill for him to swallow.”

  “I suspect it will be. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

  “But you’re not making one now. This is good. We’ll make it work.”

  Cat wiped away more tears. “I hope so.”

  “Do you want me to text you a picture of her?”

  Cat’s heart thudded. “You would do that?”

  “She’s a gorgeous young lady. Yes, I would love to do that. I’ll send one over right now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CAT STOOD ON the porch for another ten minutes, doing nothing but staring at the picture Patricia had sent her. She was right. Annabelle was gorgeous. She had blonde hair like Cat, but her eyes were Brody’s. In fact, Cat could see a lot of Brody in her. She’d always hoped that he’d passed along his features to her.

  She was suddenly anxious to share the picture with him. She wanted him to see his daughter. But before she did that, she had to face her mother.

  After scrubbing her hands over her cheeks, she pulled in a deep breath, blew it back out, and pushed the front door of the house open. Everyone was still in the dining room, though desserts had been eaten. All five of them looked up when Cat entered the room.

  “You want dessert, Mommy?” Becca asked. “We saved you some cake.”

  Cat shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Her brother stood, reaching out a hand for her, and making her wonder how unsteady she looked.

  “That was Patricia Weathers,” she said. She looked straight at her mother as she spoke.

  It took a second, but her mother blanched. “Catherine—”

  “You lied to me, Mother. You told me she was dead.”

  “It was only to help you.”

  “Who’s dead?” JP asked.

  “Why, Mother?”

  “I told you—”

  “Vega,” JP interrupted. “How about you take the kids out to play in the courtyard?”

  Vega hurried to her feet, and with faces still covered in chocolate cake, Cat’s kids followed her out of the room. At the sound of the back door closing, JP stepped to the end of the twelve-person table so that he stood equal distance between the two women. As if placing himself in position as referee. Cat wrapped her hands around the top rung of her chair and zeroed in on her mother.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” JP said. “What’s going on? And who is Patricia Weathers?”

  Cat calmly turned her head in her brother’s direction. “Brody and I had a daughter when I was sixteen.”

  “What?” he gasped.

  “I can explain,” their mother started, but Cat didn’t let her finish.

  “I never told him about the pregnancy. Patricia Weathers is a college friend of our mother’s. She adopted my daughter. And then Mom told me that my daughter had died.”

  JP went hot with anger. Cat saw his temper rise as his fists clenched and his face flushed. He may be her younger brother, but as always, his protective streak was a mile wide when it came to her.

  “What the hell, Mother?” JP raged.

  “If you’ll just let me explain.”

  “I’m meeting Brody to tell him tonight,” Cat said. “All of it.”

  “You can’t.” Her mother was on her feet. “Think of the scandal it will cause.”

  “Fuck the scandal it will cause.” Her dinner was two seconds from coming back up. She couldn’t believe this was her family. “And by the way,” she continued, her body beginning to shake with her anger, “I’m done. With all of it.”

  “You’re being overly dramatic, Catherine. You know I did it for you. You weren’t coming out of your depression. I couldn’t let you stay like that. It wasn’t healthy.” Her mother’s eyes pleaded with Cat before jumping over to JP as if he might help. Mixed in with the pleading was a fair bit of desperation.

  Good. Cat wanted her desperate. She wanted her doubled over in pain.

  “I thought it best for you,” Emma repeated, though the argument came out weak.

  Cat shook her head. She didn’t believe anything her mother said. She never would again. “You thought it best for you,” she sneered. “You couldn’t have an unstable kid running around. That might not look right for a Davenport.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  The real truth suddenly dawned on Cat and she stood up straighter. “You were afraid I would go after her.”

  Guilt was evident across Emma’s face. “No.”

  “I might change my mind and go after my daughter. Then, what? We couldn’t have an illegitimate Davenport out there, could we?” Cat accused. And then she laughed. She laughed so loud that she worried for a brief second that she’d snapped. But if she had snapped, she didn’t think she’d still hurt as bad as she did. “Isn’t that just perfect?” She gave her mother an eerie smile as she shook her head in disgust. “Exactly what you worked so hard to hide with me, our father turned around and did to you.”

  Cat glanced at her brother, who remained at the end of the table. She could see sympathy on his face. He hurt for her.

  She hurt for herself.

  Her whole life had been spent trying to make it up to her mother that she’d gotten pregnant as a teen. Only to find out that her mother had screwed her over all this time.

  “You went too far,” she said. “You don’t get to be exempt from this one. I’m finished. I’ll stay on for the job at the park, but after that I’m done. With my job. And with the family.”

  “You can’t be done with the family,” Emma exclaimed. “It’s who you are.”

  “It is not who I am. And it never should have been.”

  “You need to leave the house, Mother,” JP informed her.

  “I have as much right to be here as you do, Jackson. And you shouldn’t talk to me that way.”

  “Okay,” Cat said. She pushed her chair under the table and stepped away. “Then I’ll leave. I have a perfectly good rental I should be using anyway.” She turned to go.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” her mother said behind her.

  Cat stopped. She didn’t look back, but she couldn’t keep from stopping. Her mother owed her an apology, and she wanted to hear it. A real one.

  “I’m sorry that you and he . . .”

  Cat turned around, her face a hard mask. “Are you sorry that you hurt us?” she bit out. “That you threatened his mother if he so much as spoke to me again?”

  “I did not threaten.”

  “No? I’ll ask him. I’m guessing you did.”

  Cat knew she was lashing out, but she had a right to. She was wounded to her soul. “Or are you sorry that you made me give my baby away?”

  “I was simply trying to do what was right.”

  “And what would have been so wrong with letting us deal with our own lives? We may have been kids, but you had no right. Especially after you knew I was pregnant.”

  “He was a Harrison.”

  “I’m so tired of hearing that. What’s really so bad about the Harrisons? They’re just people.”

  “There’s always been a feud.”

 
; Cat shook her head. Her mother disgusted her. “That’s not a good enough reason any longer.”

  Without another word or look back, Cat walked out of the room. Behind her, she heard JP inform their mother that she had ten minutes to get her things and be ready to leave. He’d see her to the airport. It was clear that he didn’t intend to take no for an answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CAT STEPPED INSIDE the back door of her beach house that night, thirty minutes after the play was scheduled to end. Brody would have attended, and should be arriving at the house soon.

  And then she would destroy him.

  She paced to the other side of the room, her hands twisting in front of her. She’d woken beside Brody that morning, him asking her to move to Maine to be with him, and she got to wrap up the day by telling him he had a daughter. Her stomach cramped at the thought.

  She turned back to the door. She needed fresh air.

  Only, Brody was there.

  He stepped inside, and without a word, took several long strides to her side and kissed her. The kiss was long and hard. His touch was heaven.

  “I missed you.” He punctuated the words with another hard press of his mouth.

  When he lifted his head, Cat stared up at him, her breath in her throat. This was going to hurt him so badly.

  “What a night, Kitty Cat.” Brody took her hands in his, squeezing them as excitement shone from his eyes. “I know we have things to talk about.” He tugged her forward and kissed her again. “Plenty of things,” he stressed. “Things I should have said this morning. But first”—he paused and leaned back to look down at her—“first, I have to tell you about tonight.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. His exuberance spread to her, momentarily easing her worries. “What happened?”

  He bit his lip as if to hold back his smile, but it didn’t work. “Searcy showed up.”

  She sucked in a breath. “The producer? What happened? How’d you get him there?”

  “You.” Brody smirked. “He came to see you.”

  “So I got to help without you actually letting me help?”

  “Looks like. But I still didn’t want your name getting me a look.”

  “I guess you told him to leave, then?” She smiled.

  “No, smart-ass. I didn’t tell him to leave. Instead, I found him the best seat in the house, got the man a glass of wine, then went to the back and begged everyone to give the performance of their lifetimes.”

  “And what happened?” Cat lost her breath at his near hysteria.

  “What happened is they gave the performances of their lives. I love them. They were terrific. Searcy loved them. He loved the play. There was love all around.” His giddiness made her laugh. “No promises, though.” He held a finger up as if to tamp down her hope. “But he did say he’d get back to me next week.”

  “Oh, Brody.” Cat threw herself into his arms. “I’m so happy for you. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” He smacked her with another hard kiss. “But it’s not sold yet. And thank your name for getting him here in the first place.”

  “My pleasure.” She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the buzz vibrate from him. So much that she seriously considered holding off on her news for another time. She couldn’t bring him down. Not after this.

  “What a day,” he said. He hadn’t stopped smiling. “I woke up with you, I got to meet your kids—two really terrific people, by the way—and then it wrapped up with Searcy in the audience.” He took her by the hand and swung her out as if dancing. “And now”—he waggled his eyebrows—“I have you again.”

  No way would she tell him right now.

  He twirled her back into him. “And the first thing I want to do is tell you that I love you.”

  She quit breathing.

  “I should have said it this morning.” He rushed the words out. “Instead of just asking you to move here. But surely you know that already. It has to be written all over me every time I look at you.”

  Oh, hell. He loved her. She had to tell him now.

  Even if it did ruin a perfectly good day for him.

  She gulped. She hated herself in that moment.

  “What?” Brody asked, clearly picking up on her stress. He kept her within the circle of his arms, but she could feel his own tension take hold.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  Happiness registered immediately on his face, but disappeared just as quickly. “Then what’s wrong?”

  She swallowed again, the words sticking in her throat. “But . . .”

  The shadow of worry that passed over his features made her knees weak, and she lifted her hands to caress his face. “I do love you,” she repeated sincerely. “I swear. Very much.”

  “But?” he asked carefully, his tone a shade cooler than it had been before.

  They remained standing together, his arms around her waist, her hands on his face. Only, tears now streamed over her cheeks, and she could feel a wall trying to come up between them. She fought for courage, but failed. Then she stepped out of his embrace.

  “We had a daughter eighteen years ago,” she quietly announced.

  Brody’s face went blank. “We what?”

  Then he took a step back.

  “That summer,” Cat said. “I got pregnant.” She moved farther into the room, putting the kitchen table between them. “I went to California until she was born. Mom had a friend there. And I gave her up for adoption,” she finished in a whisper.

  Confusion marred Brody’s face. “No.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t have done that.”

  When she didn’t say anything else, his eyes narrowed.

  “You would have told me,” he insisted.

  “Except my mother got in the way,” she reminded him. Her heart pounded wildly. “We quit calling each other. We both thought the other had moved on.”

  The green of his eyes began to harden.

  “She’s eighteen,” Cat told him. Her voice broke, but she kept going, fearing if she didn’t, she wouldn’t get it all out. “Her birthday was April seventeenth. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks after I went home, after we’d already stopped talking.”

  The clench of his fists made her pause, but only for a second.

  She gulped. “We conceived the last day I was here. Out on the beach.”

  Brody’s eyes were now ice. “You think I wouldn’t be aware of when we could have conceived a child? We made love once.”

  “I—”

  “And then you gave her away?” he suddenly roared. “Without even telling me?”

  “Mom thought it was best.”

  Shit. She cringed when he jerked back. That had been the complete wrong thing to say.

  “Your mother thought it was best?” His tone turned menacing.

  She had totally messed this up. “Let me explain,” she pleaded.

  Brody shook his head, his jaw working back and forth. Cat plowed on.

  “I tried to tell you about the pregnancy,” she squeaked out. “I called your house. Twice.” They both knew that his mother had not passed along those messages.

  “So you’re blaming my mother now?” he asked. Revulsion was clear on his face.

  Cat’s shoulders sank. “No, it was . . . damn.”

  She couldn’t say it was her mother’s fault. Emma may have been the one who’d kept them apart, but Cat had made the final decision. She’d agreed to the adoption. She’d thought it was best for Annabelle.

  “I thought it was best,” she finally stammered. “Mom made the arrangements, and I went away until I delivered. But afterward, I fell into a depression. I was on meds for months.”

  “Funny,” he said with a nasty smirk. “I saw you in the news that summer, smiling and happy with another guy. One you eventually married. You didn’t look too
depressed to me.”

  “I’ve always been able to fake it in the media,” she whispered brokenly.

  “Isn’t that the truth? You’re good at it, too. The perfect Davenport.”

  Ignoring his snide remarks, she continued her story. “I wasn’t coming out of my depression, so a few months later Mom told me she’d found out that Annabelle had died. She said our baby had been born sick.”

  With the mention of her daughter’s name, Brody froze.

  His green eyes—the very eyes that looked so much like the picture on her cell phone—turned to hatred. “You named our daughter after my mother?” His words were hard.

  Cat nodded. “I loved you. I wanted to—”

  “Don’t you dare say you loved me,” he snapped. “If you’d loved me, you wouldn’t have had our child without so much as telling me. You wouldn’t have given her away!”

  He had a point. Her actions had not been indicative of love.

  But she had loved him. She still loved him.

  “That’s why I took that particular flower from your house and left it on the beach when I came back. It’s an Annabelle hydrangea.”

  Brody simply stared at her. He didn’t say anything for several long seconds. Seconds in which she could hear the waves leisurely lapping toward high tide on the other side of the deck. Seconds where she took in the laugh lines at the corners of Brody’s eyes and pictured her daughter someday having those same marks of life.

  Seconds where she watched his nostrils flare with each indrawn breath that he took.

  She was losing him. She knew it. She’d gambled, and she’d lost. But telling him had been the right thing to do.

  “How can she be eighteen if she died when she was a baby?”

  “Mom lied,” she admitted. He didn’t look surprised.

  “You sicken me.” He ground the words out. His mouth twisted as if the sight of her caused his stomach to revolt, and he reached a hand behind him toward the door. “Your entire family sickens me. And you’re just like them.”

  “She’s coming here,” Cat added before he could go. “Annabelle is. Her mother is bringing her. I’m meeting them in Portland on Saturday. I thought you might go, too.”