The Secret Daughter

by Catherine Spencer

  Other people recognized it, too. Given that he stood well over six feet tall, with a physique that tapered from shoulder to hip with stupendous muscular grace, it was hardly surprising. But it was not just his stature or that face, with its heavily lashed, startlingly blue eyes, chiseled jaw or sudden, devastating smile that earned him a second glance. It was the aura of lawlessness that no amount of surface respectability could erase.

  Watching him, Imogen was reminded of the time she’d first become aware of him as someone other than Patsy’s big brother who sometimes helped out in his father’s garage. She’d been about sixteen and had left school a few minutes early for a dental appointment.

  He’d been in the parking lot behind the auditorium, waiting as he often did to take Patsy to the hospital, where she worked as a junior volunteer two afternoons a week. Clad in the black leather jacket and boots that had been his uniform in those days, his dark hair curling over his collar and his helmet dangling from one hand, he’d been a sight to strike an uneasy thrill in a girl of Imogen’s sheltered upbringing.

  Then, as now, he’d given her a thorough once-over, his gaze traveling from her feet to her face and back in insolent appraisal. She had stared, fascinated. His body language, the angle of shoulder and hips, the way he’d straddled his motorcycle, had spelled pure animal magnetism. Her reaction—a strange, electric ripple in the pit of her stomach—had almost paralyzed her.

  As if he’d known exactly the effect he was having on her, he smiled, a slow, provocative smile. Eventually he spoke, his voice rolling over her like sin, dark and delicious and forbidden. “Something I can do for you, honey?”

  She’d almost drowned in the fiery blush that had swept over her. No one had ever called her honey before. Endearments were not common in her family.

  Heat had surged through every pore in her body and left her gasping for air—and deliverance. “I’m going to the dentist,” she squeaked irrelevantly. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “Want a lift?” he asked, at which she’d just about had a heart attack. If he’d said, “Want to neck?”, she couldn’t have been more horrified—or thrilled!

  He bathed her in the same smile now, as if they shared some private joke too delicious to share with the rest of the world, and injected the same wickedly conspiratorial tone in his voice. “We sort of left things hanging last night, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, no more in command of herself than she’d been at sixteen.

  “I’d like to pick up where we left off. Will you have dinner with me tonight?” He tugged his lapels and shrugged disarmingly. “It’s not often I get dressed up, and I hate to let the occasion go to waste.”

  Ignoring Suzannne’s whimper of distress, Imogen said yes again, aware that a kind of meltdown was occurring inside her and not caring a bit. If he’d suggested flying to the moon, she’d have said yes to that, too. Not to show her mother that she was permanently out from under her thumb but because the Joe Donnelly of today was as woefully irresistible as he’d been before he’d acquired the polish and urbanity of a mature man.

  He had kissed her and it had been nothing short of wonderful. It did no good to remind herself she’d been burned enough to know better than to play with fire. The simple fact was she yearned for him more intensely than ever, if truth be told. And what, after all, was so very wrong with that?

  They had both grown up in the interim. They didn’t have to repeat old mistakes. They could explore the possibility of a relationship founded on trust and friendship and mutual attraction, couldn’t they, and see where that led them?

  Friendship, Imogen? She blushed at the mendacity of such rationalizing. Oh, I think you’ve got a lot more in mind than that!

  He shot back his cuff to check his watch. “Are you free to leave now? I have in mind a place on the river out Peterborough way, but it’ll take us a couple of hours to get there.”

  She looked at her slim-fitting skirt. “Not on the motorcycle, I hope?”

  “No.” He laughed, making further inroads on her susceptibility, and extended his elbow in courtly invitation. “This time we travel in style, princess.”

  So what if she had more in mind than friendship? If she believed in herself and him, shouldn’t she reach out and hold on to the possibility with all her strength?

  Squaring her shoulders, she tucked her hand more firmly in the crook of his arm and cast him a deliberately flirtatious look from beneath her lashes. “Then let’s stop wasting time and go,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE HALF expected her mother to come chasing after them, screeching protests and forcibly restraining Imogen from leaving with him. But they reached the car without incident and joined the slow line of vehicles crawling toward the single exit from the parking lot.

  They didn’t talk much on the way to the restaurant. He’d borrowed Sean’s prized 1955 Thunderbird and was happy to concentrate on seeing what it could do on the open road. Imogen tossed her hat behind her seat and seemed equally content to enjoy the ride with only an occasional comment on the passing scenery. He was glad. For some reason, he suddenly felt as uptight and tongue-tied as a kid on his first date.

  He couldn’t figure out why. Because it wasn’t a date, nor had he asked her out on impulse. There was unfinished business between them, that was all, and it had seemed best to complete it where they weren’t likely to run into people they knew. In light of the number of people roaming the streets this week, there was slim chance of that happening in Rosemont. Yet given his inability to keep his hands off her when they were alone, it had seemed prudent to choose a reasonably public place where he’d have no choice but to restrain his baser urges.

  They arrived at the restaurant shortly before seven and were shown to a table at the rear of the building, on a screened porch overlooking a garden. “What a lovely old place,” she said, after they’d decided on their meal and the wine he ordered had been poured. “How did you find out about it?”

  “Read about it in a magazine at my mom’s,” he told her. “It was originally a mill, built in the early eighteen hundreds.”

  Their first course arrived, with the waiter making a big production of grinding pepper all over everything.

  “So,” he said, once they were alone again, “how did you like this afternoon’s shindig?”

  “I thought it was wonderful. Entertaining and very moving.” She laughed and leaned back in a slither of hidden silk. Instead of a blouse beneath her jacket, she had on only a satin and lace camisole that shifted around in a way that had a man’s brain lagging far behind other parts of his anatomy. “I particularly enjoyed your contribution to the program.”

  “Thanks.” Squirming, he repositioned his linen napkin on his lap and wished they’d ordered saltpeter as an appetizer instead of oysters on the half shell. “And this place—is it okay, or would you have preferred something less rustic?”

  “No! Joe, it’s charming here.” She looked at the old timbers and simple whitewashed walls, then at the garden below where a blaze of marigolds ran amok in the long grass under a gnarled old apple tree. “Even the flowers are lovely, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” he said, finding her a lot more distracting than a half-wild garden. “Why aren’t you eating your salad? Is there something wrong with it?”

  “It’s fine.” But her actions belied the words. In fact, she pushed her plate aside and, turning her attention to her wineglass, ran a fingertip around its rim then suddenly blurted out, “Actually, something’s bothering me, and I’ve been wanting to bring it up since we left the school, but I was afraid of spoiling the evening by mentioning it. But it’ll be spoiled, anyway, if I don’t get this off my chest, so please let me say how embarrassed I am at the way my mother treated you this afternoon. I don’t know why she was so rude.”

  “I do,” he said, laying down his fork. “She’s afraid of me.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous!”

  He paus
ed, debating the wisdom of telling her about his unforgettable meeting with Suzanne Palmer nine years before. He decided against it. Not only did he not want it to seem he’d used the woman’s behavior as an excuse for his shabby defection, he didn’t want to be the cause of another rift between mother and daughter.

  Not that he wouldn’t have liked to blow the old biddy’s cover wide open, just as he was sure she’d have done, if the situation were reversed. But this wasn’t about her, it was about Imogen and him. So he said, “It’s not ridiculous, princess. She knows I’m the one who got you pregnant and she doesn’t want you getting mixed-up with me again. And I can’t say I blame her. I wouldn’t want to see my daughter get hurt if I could possibly do anything to prevent it.”

  “Is that what’s going to happen, Joe? Are you planning to hurt me?”

  “Not if I can help it But that’s no guarantee it won’t happen anyway.”

  “It’s a chance I’m prepared to take,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here now if I weren’t.”

  “I hurt you before, badly.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He finished his oysters and flicked a glance out the window before focusing on her again. “One of the reasons I asked you out tonight, Imogen, was to tell you how much I wish I could change what happened that night—or at least change the outcome.”

  “Are you saying you regret the part you played?” .

  “I regret everything. You should never have been subjected to Maitland’s behavior, and I should never have taken advantage of the state you were in because of him.”

  “You saved my sanity that night, Joe. Don’t you know that?”

  “And put you through hell afterward. I’ve been haunted by what you implied last night—that I was to blame for the baby’s death.”

  Her eyes darkened in dismay. “Oh, please!” she said, touching her left hand to her heart—or more accurately, her breast. An innocent gesture, it nevertheless drew his attention to the creamy hint of cleavage beneath her camisole. “I was wrong. I had—”

  He cleared his throat and dragged his mind to where it belonged. “No, you were right. Because it was my fault you got pregnant. That’s one thing I could and should have prevented. And I didn’t because I got too caught up in the moment.” He blew out a rueful breath. “You were a damsel in real distress, and I got carried away with the idea of playing knight to the rescue.”

  “And what was wrong with that?” she asked softly. “I think you should be proud.”

  “I didn’t protect you. I made things worse.”

  “Would you feel better if I told you that I’ve never once regretted what we did?” She spread her pretty hands on the table and examined them, as if she didn’t dare look him in the eye while she made her next confession. “You were the most exciting man I’d ever met, and I fell in love with you that night.”

  “That wasn’t love.” He felt obliged to point it out. “You might have thought it was at the time because doing so made it easier for you to face the consequences of what followed. But you weren’t to blame for anything that happened that night. You were just a kid, too young by far to be associating with a guy like me.”

  “I was eighteen, Joe. Old enough to say no if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Of course, I knew I wasn’t like the girls you usually went with. I was too naive, too unsophisticated to hold your interest for very long. But still I hoped that what we shared meant something special to you, too, and that I’d see you again. I admit that when I realized I was pregnant and you’d left town, I was afraid and very unhappy. But even when things were at their worst, I could never bring myself to regret that it was your baby I was carrying.”

  She skewered him through the heart with that “I wish I’d known about the baby, Imogen,” he said, his voice thick with sudden emotion. “I wish things had turned out the way you wanted.”

  “Well, they didn’t, yet I’ve managed to move forward and make something of my life.” She waited until their plates were cleared and the main course served, then shot him a sudden mischievous smile. “Shall I tell you what I wish? That we’d just met for the first time this week, as equals. Because one thing hasn’t changed. You’re still the most exciting man I’ve ever known.”

  “And we still come from different worlds, princess,” he said quickly, before her admission could seduce him into believing otherwise.

  “I said as equals, Joe, and I meant it. Because as far as I’m concerned, that’s what we are and always have been.”

  He looked at her—at the way she wore her clothes, at her natural grace and elegance—and knew he should put a stop to her delusions before things got seriously out of hand. The plain fact was that he could dress up in the best a European tailor had to offer, but at heart, he was a blue jeans kind of guy. For him to entertain, even briefly, the idea that they’d ever make a couple was asking for nothing but trouble he didn’t need.

  Four years ago, he’d sailed away from Ojo del Diablo a free man, and it had taken a lot of hard work since to get to where he was today. He’d be a fool to shoot himself in the foot now.

  So why did he risk looking past the outward trimmings and into her soul where the girl he’d once found irresistible still lurked, as defenseless now as she’d been then? Why did the discovery create such confusion in him, making it impossible for him to adhere to his code of survival?

  If she’d become super gorgeous or sexily coy, as so many women with her background and money did, he could have ignored what she said. But her quiet glamour, the prettiness that came of being a blue-eyed, natural blonde who didn’t need to rely on makeup and, most of all, her honesty and vulnerability, had him wanting to touch her, to take what she offered. And to say... Damn it all, to say things far better left unsaid.

  Suddenly furious with her for uncovering a weakness in himself he found both humiliating and intolerable, he said curtly, “I no more believe that than you do, Imogen, so let’s cut the flattery and get down to business.”

  “Business?”

  “That’s right. You only covered part of the story last night. Tell me the rest about my daughter.”

  “The rest?” She no more understood the anger in his tone than he did, and stared at him wide-eyed with hurt and bewilderment. “But I’ve told you everything, Joe. What else is there to say?”

  “You can tell me how much she weighed, why she died, what you called her.” Hardening his heart against her whimper of distress, he plunged on, despising the way he was behaving but driven by a deep-seated need to know, to understand. “And most important, where she’s buried. I want to visit her grave, Imogen. I want her to know her father cares that she was born.”

  She seemed to shrink. “I can’t tell you those things,” she said, in a small, defeated voice.

  “Yes, you can. You owe me that much.”

  “I can’t,” she repeated, shaking her head, “because I don’t know myself.”

  “Don’t hand me that!” he said scornfully. “Of course you know. She was a full-term baby. Her birth and death are a matter of record.”

  “But I was never told the details.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was a difficult labor. At the end, they gave me an anesthetic. When I woke up, I’d been moved from the delivery suite to a private room on a different floor, and it was all over. My mother was sitting by my bed. She broke the news to me and said she’d taken care of everything.”

  He gave an exclamation of disgust. “And you just let it go at that? You didn’t even ask to see our child? You let them ship her off to some morgue without once holding her in your arms?”

  Her chin quivered and tears hung in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She tilted her patrician little nose, looked him squarely in the eye and said, “Yes. For once, I was happy to let my mother take charge. And since you’re so anxious to learn all the facts, I’ll tell you why. Because at the time, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to be dead, too. I felt I had nothing to live for. Nothin
g! For months after, I went through the motions of living and kept my grief bottled up inside.”

  “A person doesn’t find closure that way. Why else do you think people put themselves through the agony of funerals? Because they need to say goodbye. And you’d have been a sight better off if you’d followed that route.”

  “Of course I would have,” she whispered. “But I didn’t. Instead, I ran away. For a whole year, I traveled through North Africa, India, Malaysia, working in places where people have so little that anything you can do to make their lives easier is a gift beyond price.”

  “You worked?”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes. I did! It helped to keep my mind off my own troubles. But a person can run only so far before reality catches up. It wasn’t until I was in Thailand that the reality of my child’s death finally caught up with me, and by then it was too late.”

  “It’s never too late, Imogen,” he said, his anger subsiding into shame when he saw how his bullying had wounded her. He reached out to grasp her hands where they lay on the table. They felt cold as ice. Folding them in the warmth of his, he said, “Somewhere there’s a grave. I think, if you’re ever to know real peace of mind, you need to find that place. I know I do.”

  She started crying, a silent outpouring of tears that rolled down her cheeks and onto her jacket. She sat perfectly straight, so still she might have been cast in marble. Nothing moved except those great, quiet, endless tears.

  And to his horror and embarrassment, he felt his eyes fill. She wasn’t the only one who’d tried to avoid facing up to reality. Ever since he’d learned about the baby, he’d tamped down his own pain, refusing to let it gain the upper hand, determined to outrun it. But suddenly it burst free inside him with such force that the only way he could contain it was to clamp his jaw so tightly his teeth hurt.

  How long it took him to gain control he didn’t know. Too long, certainly, because suddenly she uttered a quietly desperate plea. “My hands!” she said, and he realized he was crushing her fingers in his.