The Secret Daughter

by Catherine Spencer

  The memory of that ride burned particularly bright. Hardly surprising, given that they’d shared a similar ride only a few hours ago, the only difference being that now she’d blossomed into a woman whose curves were more lushly defined than those of the girl he’d ridden away with then. Still, he could recall in vivid detail how he felt, speeding through the night with the rushing air flattening his T-shirt to his chest, her arms clutched around his waist, the warmth of her body at his back. Like a hero. Except heroes didn’t take advantage of a woman in distress, no matter what the circumstances.

  They were almost at the gates to her house when he realized she was trying to tell him something. Pulling to the side of the road, he turned his head toward her. “Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said.”

  Her face was a pale blur at his shoulder, her voice as light as a moth’s wing fluttering at his ear. “I don’t want anyone to see how I... Could we go in by the back entrance, do you think? It’s only a mile or two down the road.”

  “Whatever you say, my lady.”

  He should have known he was on dangerous ground when he started talking like some eighteenth-century poet wasting away with brain rot. If he’d had a grain of sense, he’d have told her only someone with reason to feel guilty needed to sneak in the back door, and from everything he’d seen, she’d been blameless in the night’s events.

  He hadn’t had a grain of sense. Instead, he’d done as she asked and marveled that what she called the back entrance was grander by far than anything to be found in his section of town. Slowly, he drove past a gatekeeper’s lodge and cruised along a path just wide enough to take a small truck. Eventually, they arrived at a trio of greenhouses.

  “I can walk from here,” she said, slipping from the bike.

  A belt of trees separated the working end of the estate from the formal gardens. Apart from the faint sheen of moonlight reflected by the glass of the greenhouses, it had been too dark to see more than a couple of feet.

  Turning off the ignition and leaning the bike on its kickstand, he said, “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve put you to enough trouble already.”

  “Sorry, princess,” he said, taking her firmly by the arm, “but I don’t do things by half. I’ve brought you this far. I’ll see to it you make it safely the rest of the way.”

  Jeez, what a sanctimonious jerk he’d been, and for what? To prove within the hour that he was no better than Maitland, out to gratify his own needs with little regard for hers?

  They followed a trail through the trees and eventually came to the clearing where the cottage stood. “What is this place?” he asked, beginning to think he’d stumbled into some sort of fairy tale. The only thing missing was a trail of bread crumbs and some ancient hag cackling at the door.

  “My old playhouse.”

  “Some playhouse!”

  “It’s only one room,” she said, as if that made any difference. Hell, he could name a couple of families in Lister’s Meadows who’d have thought the place a pal ace.

  His jacket hung on her narrow frame. Pushing back one sleeve, she clutched the collar close to her throat. “I can’t let my mother see me like this, so I’ll wait here until I know she’s in bed before I go to the house.”

  Years must have gone by since the place had been used. The door was jammed, its wood warped from too much winter frost and summer humidity. When she finally realized it wasn’t going to open for her, she sagged against the frame and began to cry. He realized then she wasn’t nearly as much in command of the situation as she thought she was.

  “Here,” he said, pushing her gently aside, “let me.”

  Putting his shoulder to it, he rammed the door open with one shove and ended up half-stumbling across the threshold. Inside, it was dark as a cave. “Watch your step,” he warned her, swiping at the cobwebs sticking to his face.

  He heard her footsteps approach and felt rather than saw her standing beside him. The next thing he knew, she’d slipped her hand into his. “You don’t suppose there are mice in here, do you?” she asked fearfully.

  “No,” he lied, knowing damned well all manner of wildlife had likely made a home there over the years. “Is the place hooked up with electricity, by any chance?”

  “No. When I was little, I only ever came during the day in the summer.”

  “Check my jacket. There’s a cigarette lighter in one of the pockets.”

  She fumbled a moment, then her voice came again, a little less rattled than before. “Here it is.”

  He reached for it, ignoring the sweet brush of her fingers against his, and flicking it open, he adjusted the flame as high as it would go. Shadows jumped crazily over the low ceiling and around the room, but there was enough light to see the hand-me-down Oriental rug covering the wooden floorboards. A child’s rocking chair sat under one window with a toy cradle next to it. Beside the other window was a table where a little girl might have entertained her dolls to tea. Patsy at eight or nine would have gone ballistic if she’d seen the place.

  But as an adult refuge? “You can’t stay here, princess,” he said scornfully as she slipped off his jacket and tried to return it to him. “Let me take you home. If it’ll help any, I’ll explain to your mother what happened tonight. She can’t hold you responsible.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly!” Her eyes had grown huge, each pupil reflecting the lighter flame in perfect miniature. “You don’t understand. I can’t let my mother see...all this.”

  She looked at the ragged, grass-stained dress, at her white satin shoes, which were in even sadder shape. And, God help him, he looked at her.

  His glance had gone from the crushed fabric to her hair, all pale, shimmering gold in the flickering light. From her hands, trembling as she tried to put herself to rights, to her neck, rising smooth as cream above the torn bodice of her gown.

  She cringed before his scrutiny. “I feel so dirty,” she whispered, a fresh crop of tears sparkling suddenly on the tips of her lashes. “So cheap and stupid.”

  He’d known about sex, about allure, about all kinds of things that draw a man to a woman. But until that night and that moment with Imogen, he had not known about pure, feminine grace, and he had no concept at all of fragility. Only when he looked into her eyes and saw her bruised spirit staring at him had he begun to understand, and by then it was too late for either of them.

  He reached out to her, his aim solely to reassure her, to try to heal her. Without a second’s hesitation, she came to him. Snapping off the lighter, he pulled her into his arms. “You’re none of those things, princess,” he muttered, burying her face against his neck and stroking the supple, trembling length of her spine.

  The fragrance of her skin, her hair, rose to captivate him. She smelled of loveliness and everything a woman ought to be. He knew no other way to describe it. Of spring-filled days and hot summer nights, of passion and innocence. Unforgettable. Intoxicating.

  Without warning, his blood had surged, leaving him tight and aching. At the back of his mind, a voice had warned him to put a stop to things before they went too far. But his mind wasn’t in charge anymore.

  Nor, it appeared, was hers. She softened in his arms. The trembling stopped. She turned her face toward him and without premeditation he found himself kissing her. She kissed him back, her mouth warm and soft and willing.

  There was no disguising his arousal. Nor had she seemed offended by it, if the way she tilted against him was any indication. He wasn’t conscious of sliding his hand down to cup her hip and press her closer and couldn’t, if his life had depended on it, have said when they began moving together in a slow, sinuous prologue to intimacy.

  One thing led to another, that was all. There in that dumb little house, on that threadbare old rug, with nothing but a brief flood of moonlight to gild the moment, he made love to her with more tenderness and care than he’d thought himself capable of.

  She was the first virgin he’d had. Tight and sleek, driven by
nothing but instinct, too artless to pretend and too sweetly generous to withhold, she gave him all of herself. And he’d taken, losing himself inside her, the condoms he always carried lying forgotten beneath her head in the zippered inside pocket of his jacket.

  Afterward, he’d been horrified. Ashamed. Disgusted with himself.

  And she? She’d curled up in his arms. “Thank you, Joe!” she’d whispered, as if he’d just hung the moon for her....

  If the lightening strip of sky to the east hadn’t told him it was time to make a move, the predawn chill invading his limbs did. Hoisting himself to his feet, he flexed his shoulders and knees, then rotated his head to ease the stiffness in his neck.

  His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, and he was so hungry his stomach was folding in on itself. Not the best shape for a man to be in when he was at the controls of a powerful machine, he decided, and ambled down to splash his face in the creek.

  The water was like ice, stinging him to full alertness. Shaking away the drops clinging to his hair and wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans, he headed to where he’d left the bike, at the top of a rise in the road.

  By his reckoning, he’d traveled northeast out of Rosemont after dropping off Imogen and come pretty much full circle, ending up some seventy miles west of where he’d started. Fleetingly, he entertained the idea of giving the town a wide berth and riding on, not stopping until he was in California, in the place he’d called home for the last four years.

  If he’d thought such a move would give him peace of mind, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But there were too many unresolved issues nagging at his mind. For a start, why had his daughter died? Was it something that could have been prevented? Might his being there have made a difference, as Imogen had more or less implied?

  If so, that mother of hers had plenty to answer for, because contrary to what Imogen seemed to believe, he had attempted to keep in touch. Had, in fact, presented himself at the front door a couple of days later and been told in no uncertain terms to take a hike because the daughter of the house was so determined to sever any connection that she had fled town rather than run the risk of having to see him again.

  No, he wasn’t going anywhere until he got some answers.

  Wheeling the bike into the middle of the road, he sat for a moment, looking at the valley below. A farm nestled in a hollow, with a windbreak of trees around it. Already lights showed at the windows and a thin column of smoke rose from the chimney to hang motionless in the air. He heard the faint clang of metal on metal coming from an outbuilding, the stamping of hooves on cement, and knew a sudden sense of loss for what might have been.

  He could have been happy with such a life if circumstances had been different. A spread of land to call his own, horses in the stables, a wife, a child. If only Imogen had come to him and their baby had lived...

  Impatiently, he inhaled a lungful of the fresh, sharp air and slipped the bike into gear. With any luck, he’d be back in time to sit down to breakfast in his mother’s kitchen—ham, eggs, hash-brown potatoes and gallons of coffee to keep him on his toes. He was going to need all the fortification he could get for what he intended to accomplish that day.

  Surprisingly, Suzanne decided to attend the retirement ceremony with Imogen. “Well, why not?” she asked, apparently quite recovered from her migraine of the night before. “Apart from the fact that I received an invitation—as indeed I should have, given that I served eight years on the school board—I rather like the idea of going out with my daughter. When, after all, was the last time you and I were seen in public together, Imogen?”

  Imogen didn’t point out that it had been the day her mother had driven her away from the clinic in Ferndale and dropped her off at the nearest airport. Why spoil the occasion with dark reminders when it was obvious that Suzanne was trying to do her part to mend matters between them?

  The auditorium was filling fast. Imogen recognized quite a few faces in passing, but Joe’s was not among them. It was just as well. After last night, she wasn’t sure she could look him in the eye with any degree of composure. That kiss they’d shared had wreaked too much havoc.

  Slipping into a seat next to the center aisle, she looked around, thinking that the place didn’t look so very different from the last time she’d been there, the day she received her high school diploma. Now, as then, a great bank of flowers decorated the stage. The same polished lectern sat center front, with a row of chairs fanning out on either side.

  She’d been one of twenty-three graduates, as full of dreams as the rest and just as sure that life after school held nothing but success and good fortune. How quickly it all had changed for her! Less than twenty-four hours later, her future lay in ruins.

  The lights in the auditorium flickered, then dimmed, a warning that the ceremony was about to begin. A hush stole over the assembly. The school music teacher raised his baton and led the band into the school song as the platform party, composed of the usual dignitaries, filed on stage.

  “When we convened to discuss how best to honor you, Miss Duncliffe,” the emcee said, once he got past his preliminary welcome, “we decided that the most meaningful accolades would surely be those offered by people who, like me, were once your students. You might not remember all the names or faces of the people you’ll be seeing in the next little while, but they have never forgotten you. And so, without further ado, let me introduce our first guest.”

  Imogen settled back in her seat, prepared to enjoy herself and feeling more relaxed in her mother’s company than she’d have thought possible a week ago. The tributes ranged from touching to entertaining, reducing even Suzanne to ladylike titters on occasion. But when the last guest was announced and Joe walked on stage, Imogen was struck with the treacherous sense of having the ground dissolve beneath her feet.

  The sight of him all spruced up in a navy suit, white shirt and burgundy tie took her breath away. Unable to help herself, she drank in the sight of him, the lean elegance of his hands casually gripping the lectern, his eyes ranging the audience and seeming to come to rest on her with such intimacy that she thought her lungs would seize up.

  He began to speak, amusingly, it seemed, since everyone around her was laughing, but she, too mesmerized by the movement of his lips as they shaped words, heard nothing. Instead, she found herself so thoroughly caught up in reliving last night’s kiss that her mouth stung from the memory of it.

  In his present mood, Joe Donnelly was hard to resist. His charm was almost palpable, his easy assurance far removed from the bad-boy image he’d once taken such pains to promote.

  After he concluded his remarks, the superintendent of schools presented Miss Duncliffe with her retirement gift, and the ceremony drew to a close with a reminder of the strawberry tea to follow on the playing field.

  Suzanne, her mood unaccountably altered, sniffed disapprovingly. “I think we’ll give that a miss,” she declared, as they emerged from the auditorium into the brilliant heat of the afternoon. “We’ll be far more comfortable at Deepdene, and I do so dislike crowds.”

  But Imogen hadn’t come all the way to Rosemont to fall into the same old bad habit of letting her mother dictate her every move. “If that’s what you’d prefer, then by all means go, Mother, but I plan to stay and catch up with friends I haven’t seen in years.”

  Her mother met the suggestion with amused disdain. “Oh, Imogen, I hardly think—” But the familiar air of disapproval had lost its power to influence, and Suzanne knew it. “I hardly think,” she amended, “that I should leave, then. We ought to present a united front.”

  The tea tent was busy, but they managed to find a table at one end. And then, suddenly, Joe materialized from the crowd and stood directly in front of them. “I was hoping I’d track you down in here. How are you, Mrs. Palmer?”

  His smile, candid and warm enough to melt stone, failed to move Suzanne. “Do I know you?” she inquired, fixing him in a stare designed to freeze him into extinction.

  Joe
wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “We have met, Mrs. Palmer, but it was a long time ago. I’m Joe Donnelly. From Lister’s Meadows.”

  He flung the words down like a challenge, and despite the heat of the afternoon, a chill feathered the back of Imogen’s neck. Joe was up to no good. She knew it as well she knew her own name. And Suzanne looked as if she was going to have a stroke.

  “I was hoping,” he went on, with the watchful delight of a particularly smug tomcat waiting to pounce on a mouse, “that we could have tea together. It’s been so long since we visited.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, young man,” Suzanne retorted, her tone as glacial as her features, “nor do I care to stay and find out. And may I say I find your accosting me in this fashion nothing short of impertinent.”

  She stood and attempted to leave. But Joe was not about to be so easily dismissed. “It has never been my intention to offend you, ma’am. I merely thought we might—”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged and turned his attention to Imogen. His glance swept over her patent leather pumps, the gold fob watch at the lapel of her ivory blazer, the diamonds in her ears and, finally rested with potent dedication on her mouth.

  Almost dissolving in the heat of his scrutiny, she took refuge beneath the brim of her straw boater, at which he bent and touched a finger to her chin. “You’re looking even lovelier today than you did last night, Imogen,” he said.

  “Last night?” Suzanne echoed faintly, sinking into her seat.

  Still holding Imogen’s gaze, he said, “Didn’t she tell you, Mrs. Palmer? We spent quite a bit of time together yesterday, catching up on old times.”

  A hint of panic colored her mother’s voice. “Imogen? Is this true?”

  “Yes,” Imogen said, completely enthralled by him.

  He’d visited the barber, and for today, at least, the blue jeans had been abandoned in favor of his well-cut suit, but underneath he was still a maverick. It would take more than a knife-edged crease in his pants and a conservative haircut to reduce a man like Joe Donnelly to the ranks of the ordinary.