Justified Deception (Prequel: Dancing Moon Ranch Series)

by Watters, Patricia

  "Your daughter."

  Ruth said nothing, but from the uncertain look in her eyes, Matt knew she was trying to evade any questions, which she confirmed when she said, "I can't talk about her."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's too painful."

  When she started to get up, Matt grabbed her arm. "Not this time, Ruth. We will talk about your daughter. What was her name?"

  After a long stretch of silence Ruth looked at him, tears welling, and said, "Beth."

  "The little girl you told Annie about."

  She nodded miserably.

  "What about her father? Was he your husband?"

  Ruth gave a humorless laugh. "No. Sebastian was a performing magician I met when I was in Las Vegas with some girlfriends. He singled me out from the audience to help with an act, and before I left the stage he said he wanted to see me again. We had a relationship over a few months when he was performing in several cities on the west coast. He talked about my becoming his assistant, which I took as also becoming his wife. He neglected to mention he was already married until after I told him I was pregnant. That was the last I saw of him." Her mouth compressed in a harsh line.

  Matt took a moment to absorb that, before asking, "Then you didn't press him for child support?"

  Ruth shook her head. "I just wanted him out of my life."

  Matt reached out and drew her face around so she had to look at him, and said, "I'm glad you told me that because I finally understand why you don't want to have a sexual relationship outside of marriage. And that's okay. But if you don't talk about your daughter, you'll never come to terms with it. How did she die?"

  Ruth nervously batted her eyes. "It was a childhood thing. They never really knew."

  "Then it was an illness," Matt said.

  "Well, yes... no. I don't know." Ruth hands fluttered around like restless birds.

  "You don't know how she died? Wasn't there an autopsy?"

  "She was just…. It was fast."

  "In a hospital?" Matt asked.

  "Well, no. It was sudden. Now, please no more questions about Beth. That's not why I wanted you here with me."

  "Honey, please don't keep changing the subject. It's been four years since your daughter died and it's time to begin to heal and I want to help you. You said it was sudden—"

  "I'm fine really," Ruth cut in. To Matt's surprise, she began unsnapping his shirt, and as she did, she sent a trail of kisses down his chest, stopping at his belly long enough to unfasten his jeans. He wasn't finished asking questions about her daughter, and he was determined not to be distracted this time…

  But then his mind fogged, and all he was aware of was the unrestrained, uninhibited things Ruth was doing, and the intensely erotic sensations they brought...

  ***

  Matt stretched his back and extended his legs under the desk in his office. Maybe he was too old for what happened at the swimming hole. Ruth had him in such a high state of arousal he wasn't sure now if he'd satisfied her. If it had been any other woman behaving as Ruth had he wouldn't have given it further thought. But with Ruth... Something wasn't right. She'd acted more like Jody, coming onto him with total abandon…

  But none of it was genuine. Behind it was an objective.

  Again, that niggling uncertainty.

  One thing did stand out. The mask falling away. He even remembered his words that triggered it: You act like you're Annie’s mother.

  She'd been completely disarmed by those words. Thinking back, he knew what it was that struck him. Ruth's affinity, a kinship not toward him, but toward Annie. It was almost palpable. He didn't understand why, but he sensed, from the start, that Ruth would stay by Annie, no matter what. Stay by her... like a mother would stay by her child...

  Recently, he'd begun to have doubts. Ruth had given birth to a daughter who would be about Annie's age, yet she refused to talk about the child's death. It was also possible the child didn't die. He'd been the one to jump to that conclusion. And Ruth's explanation was specious...

  …a childhood thing… they never really knew…

  Was that the crux of it? Ruth? Annie's mother? She’d unquestionably reacted when Annie had a nightmare that included something taking her away from ‘Mommy.’ And there was the incident with the adoption folder and Ruth's odd explanation to Edith for being in his office...

  ...looking for books...?

  Shoving his chair back, he went to the file and opened the drawer. He noticed at once that the folders were out of order. The folder labeled Adoption was behind the one labeled Birth Certificates. And both were filed under "C". He thumbed through the adoption folder. Everything seemed in order. But when he scanned the Birth Certificate folder he saw that one of the three certified copies of Annie's certificate was missing.

  At once, he knew what he must do.

  Picking up the phone, he punched in the numbers for Bret's office. The receptionist answered. "Matt here, Maggie. Put me through to Bret."

  Almost immediately, Bret took the call. "Hey buddy. Your custody battle’s about to become history. It seems Jody and her new husband have been racking up huge bills keeping up the celebrity front, playing around with meth and coke and whatever other drug they can get their hands on. Not a very stable environment for Annie. So don’t worry, pal. Jody and her petition are about to be tossed out of court."

  "Yeah, well that’s great news," Matt said, "but it’s not why I called."

  "So, what gives?"

  "I want a background check run on Ruth. Crawford’s her last name. Ruth Crawford. But that might not be her real name."

  After a moment’s pause, Bret said, "I'm not surprised. Something’s been nagging me about her from the start. But why do you want the background check? Do you think she’s involved with Jody?"

  "Not Jody," Matt said. "Annie. I think Ruth might be Annie’s biological mother."

  "You’d better fill me in..."

  After Matt hung up, he started having second thoughts. Maybe he was wrong about Ruth. Maybe he was building a case that didn't exist. Maybe Annie simply filled a void in Ruth's life, and he was her means of holding onto Annie. Maybe the free and uninhibited sex at the river was the culmination of years of abstinence.

  But she'd also removed a certified copy of Annie's birth certificate from the file cabinet. He wouldn't bring that up though. He'd be more subtle. He rested back in his chair and tapped the edge of the adoption folder against his palm. If she was not Annie's mother, his next move wouldn't alarm her. But if she was Annie’s mother....

  He'd be watching her reaction, very closely.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ruth stared at the file folder labeled Adoption, resting on the kitchen table. Why would Matt leave it in plain view? She looked around, and seeing no one, focused on the folder again. She never got a chance to look inside when she was in Matt's office, and now here it was, with all the answers she needed. She touched the folder and withdrew her hand. It seemed too obvious, like she was being set up. But then, Matt could have it out to give to Bret for his custody battle.

  Ignoring the folder, she poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table... beside the folder. Again, she touched the tab labeled Adoption. This time she allowed her fingers to toy with the label before withdrawing her hand. She stared at the folder, the urge to peruse its contents almost too powerful to ignore. Again, she reached out. Again, she hesitated...

  "Go ahead. Open it." The deep voice seemed to come from out of nowhere.

  Every muscle in Ruth's body tensed. She turned to find a pair of eyes coldly appraising her and wondered what happened between their lovemaking at the swimming hole the day before, and now. No love in those eyes. Whatever happened that changed Matt's feelings, the next few minutes could make the difference between her staying as Annie's nanny, or being dismissed and having to make a quick and potentially dangerous decision.

  She ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips, and said, "I'm really not interested in what's inside the folder. I w
as just curious as to what it was." She turned toward him and curved her arms around his neck, and said, "You look tired."

  "You're lying." He pulled her hands from around him, leaving the tiny hairs on her forearms bristling from his cold, impersonal touch.

  Rubbing her forearms to stop the tingling, she said, "Why would I lie? You do look tired. And it's no wonder." She offered a wry smile. "You were very energetic yesterday."

  Her smile did nothing to soften his features. If anything, the line of his mouth grew harder, his eyes more intense. "Edith found you in my office," he said. "What were you looking for?"

  Ruth managed a casual shrug, and said, "I wasn't looking for anything. Everyone was gone and I was bored, and curious. I have a problem that way. I'm kind of a snoop when I get bored."

  "If you have questions about Annie's adoption, ask," Matt said.

  Ruth looked at him with a start. He'd been unwilling to talk to Bret about the adoption, and the one tie she'd asked he'd cut her off. Why was he willing to talk to her now? Something about this wasn't right. She moistened her dry lips, and after a prolonged silence, she said, "Okay then. Why didn't you adopt a boy? You treat Annie like one. All the men do."

  "I wanted a boy," Matt said, candidly, "but Annie's what we got."

  "Where did you get her from?" There, it was out. This wasn't the way she'd planned to fish for information, but it was done now and she couldn't take it back.

  "An ad in the newspaper."

  A numbness crept over her as Bill's words came back...

  ...black market children placed for adoption often turn up in newspaper ads...

  She and her parents and almost everyone they knew had scanned the ads in every newspaper in the country. How had they missed this one?

  Taking a deep breath to slow the pounding of her heart, she said, "You bought Annie from a newspaper ad, like buying a dog or a car?"

  Matt's eyes sparked with irritation, and his tone was oddly defensive when he replied, "I got her through an agency that handles hard-to-adopt kids. Annie had emotional problems. It happens when a mother dumps a child after having her for almost two years."

  Ruth met his intense gaze. Under that relentless stare, a terrible awareness began to dawn. He was piecing things together, and within days, perhaps hours, he'd figure out the truth. So she had little time to make her case for Beth... Or take Annie and run...

  Matt's face hardened. "Don't you want to know why her mother gave her up?"

  Ruth looked at him with a start. How had he known that was precisely the question foremost on her mind? Uneasy with his knack for reading her thoughts, she shrugged, and said, "It doesn't matter at this point, but if you want to tell me, go ahead."

  "She gave Annie up for money. Thirty thousand dollars." His mouth compressed in a harsh line as he waited for her response.

  ...black market children sell for exorbitant sums...

  "That seems very high," she said. "Is that typical?"

  "Only with hard-to-place children," Matt replied. "In Annie's case, her mother was single, the father married, a child didn't fit the mother's lifestyle, and the mother needed money." He looked directly at her. "Strange how some women can walk away from their child, like they are so much excess baggage." There was no question he'd directed the statement at her. If he didn't already know exactly who she was, he was beginning to figure it out. Maybe he'd already learned she was Jennifer Ruth Sinclair, not Ruth Crawford. And to help him fill in the pieces, she’d told him Sebastian was married...

  "Isn’t it illegal to sell a child?" she asked, then wished she could retract the words. Accusing Matt of being party to an illegal adoption was like waving a red flag at a bull. But in Matt's case she wouldn't be waving a flag at just one bull. She'd be waving it at a pen full of bulls in the form of a top divorce attorney, a senator, the state attorney general and a judge…

  "It's not illegal to provide for the mother," Matt said. "Annie's adoption's legal. Her birth mother has no claim on her. None, whatsoever." The look of accusation on his face said it all.

  Ruth tried to pull her garbled thoughts together. Everything was closing in on her, and the only plan she had was a DNA test that wouldn't be admissible in court, but would be a start. But first she had to smooth things over with Matt long enough to get to town and mail the tests, and stay another week to get the results. She also realized Matt believed she was Annie's biological mother, who planned to take Annie back, and she couldn't argue against that unless she told him everything about the abduction, and she wasn't ready to do that until she had the results of the tests. With tears prickling her eyes, she said, "Have I done something to make you mad? At the swimming hole you said you loved me. But now you act as if you don't want me... for anything."

  "I wasn't thinking straight," Matt said. "You were doing things that fogged my mind."

  "That's because I'd been thinking about what you said about having an uncommitted relationship, and I thought maybe it would be okay," Ruth replied.

  Matt ended a prolonged silence by saying, "The basis of any relationship is honesty, and I don't think that's what I'm getting." He turned and stalked out of the room.

  It wasn't until Ruth was behind the closed door to her bedroom that she let the tears flow. Tears of shame and humiliation, of longing for what they'd had... of a love found and lost. And for the child she'd come so close to reclaiming. Had it come down to what she'd feared most? Was there only one alternative left? But if she took Annie and fled, it would mean taking her against her will, and running from a father Annie loved, who'd never stop hunting them down.

  But she did have one alternative left. Telling Matt everything and hoping he'd be a reasonable man and work something out with her about Annie. But before she did that, she'd have the results of the test in her hand.

  ***

  That evening, Annie again asked Ruth to tuck her in bed, and although Matt was clearly disturbed by it, he left the room. Ruth sat on the side of Annie's bed, and after Annie settled against her pillow, she looked up at Ruth, and said, "Will you stay here forever?"

  Ruth let out a nervous snicker, and replied, "Forever is a very long time."

  "But you love me, don't you?"

  Ruth bent down and kissed Annie on the forehead. "Of course I love you, sweetheart. You're the most special person in the world to me."

  "Even more special than Beth?"

  Ruth looked into questioning eyes, and replied, "Yes, even more special than Beth."

  "Then will you tuck me in and tell me a story?"

  "You bet." But when Ruth lifted the covers to straighten them, she froze. "Bum Baby...." the words came on a breathless whisper as she stared in disbelief at the stuffed monkey cradled in Annie's arm. The sight of the monkey Ruth's mother gave Beth brought a sharp pain in Ruth's chest, like a great fissure opening in her heart.

  Annie looked at her, puzzled. "How did you know his name?"

  Ruth said nothing, too stunned to speak. In an instant her doubts about Annie being Beth had vanished. Her throat tightened, tears welled, and it was all she could do to keep from taking Annie in her arms and holding her for dear life as image after image unfurled in her mind—Beth pulling her red wagon with Bum Baby peeking out from under a mound of toys. Bum Baby in his little wooden cradle, Beth tenderly covering him with a dish towel blanket. Beth asleep in bed, Bum Baby clasped in her arm, just as he was now....

  "Ruth?" Annie's voice tugged Ruth back to the moment. "How did you know his name was Bum Baby?" she repeated.

  Ruth blinked several times, then said in a shaky voice, "Oh... he looks like a little baby baboon, so that's what I thought his name was. Baboon baby."

  Annie eyed her, dubiously. "You didn't say Baboon Baby. You said Bum Baby."

  "I suppose it might have sounded like that," Ruth said, in a shaky voice. "I've never seen him before."

  "That’s ‘cause he’s usually in Daddy’s room. But Daddy said I could keep him in my room now if I wanted." Annie held out Bum Ba
by. "You want to see him?"

  "Sure." Ruth took the monkey and stared at it. The monkey's muzzle was almost devoid of hair, as if made bald by a child's kisses, and the black nose embroidered on his face was frayed and worn. With a shaky finger, she traced the zigzag stitching holding together a seam on his tummy. "It held," she whispered, impulsively.

  Annie looked at her, curious, and Ruth realized she'd spoken aloud, and quickly amended, "This seam. It looks like Bum Baby had been repaired and the seam has held."

  Annie shrugged. "It's always been like that."

  Ruth returned the monkey to Annie, kissed her on the forehead, and said, "Goodnight, sweetheart." Annie hugged Ruth, then snuggled under the covers and closed her eyes.

  And Ruth prepared for what she'd be doing next.

  ***

  Matt left Bret’s office in Salem, his mind whirling with a confusion of conflicting emotions as he headed for the airpark and his plane. Once airborne, the reality of what he’d done sunk in. He'd just signed papers that, while protecting Annie, could ultimately send the woman he loved to jail, if she attempted to take Annie and flee.

  No, not the woman he loved. Send Ruth to jail. He had not fallen in love with a woman who could give her child up for hard cold cash, and four years later, walk back into her life to relieve her guilt—a woman who could just as easily walk out of Annie's life again when faced with the challenges of parenting. He'd fallen in love with an ideal, even considered marrying her, the woman Ruth held herself out to be.

  Well, the wheels of justice were turning and he had no intention of stopping them. But to prevent himself from doing that, he'd have to keep his mind off the Ruth he'd come to love with all his heart and soul. And that Ruth was not the Ruth who'd serviced him at the swimming hole. The Ruth he'd fallen in love with would have given herself to him with heartfelt tenderness, and passion. The kind of woman he wanted to share his life with. But that Ruth didn't exist. Even now he found it hard to believe it had all been an act, part of a larger plan. But it was, and he'd better hold to the truth and put the rest behind.