“If your husband would quit being stubborn and give me the goddamn screwdriver—” the Captain grumbled.
“Yelling at each other isn’t going to help,” Finn said. “I don’t blame either one of you for being distracted. But Deirdre’s stronger than you think.”
Deirdre ached at her best friend’s vote of confidence. Finn had had faith in her from the moment they’d met, when Deirdre had been a heartbeat away from surrendering the only thing in her life that really mattered.
Her daughter…
Deirdre hated the thought of Finn being caught in the middle of the impending storm, but she’d married into the McDaniel family with her eyes wide-open. What else could she expect?
“Besides,” Finn said, “Emma’s with her.”
The memory of Emma’s stricken face slammed into Deirdre like a fist to the solar plexus, shattering any consideration Finn’s condition warranted. Anger flared anew. “As a matter of fact, Emma was with me,” Deirdre snarled, charging into the room. “Thank you all so much for that little treat.”
“Deirdre!” Finn wheeled toward her, Irish green eyes asking more than Deirdre could ever give her.
“Thank God you’re here, girl!” the Captain grumbled. “You put this damned thing together! Your brother can’t tell a nut from a bolt today! I can’t figure out what the hell’s wrong with him.”
“That’s easy enough to explain. Nothing like a guilty conscience to screw up your concentration, is there, big brother? You sent Emma to the house.”
“That’s right. I told the kid where you were.” Cade tossed his screwdriver to the thick blue carpet and levered himself to his feet, his chin jutting at a belligerent angle that accented the faint scar he’d gotten hauling their father out of a fight years ago. “Go ahead and string me up. You wouldn’t let me come with you, and I didn’t think you should be alone.”
“I didn’t hold your hand when you were sorting through that box with your old comic books in it. Why shouldn’t I be alone to look through my own stuff?”
“You know damned well why.” Cade raked his dark hair back from his forehead and glared down at her with eyes as blue and blazing with defiance as her own. “That chest might as well have been stuffed with dynamite the way you blew up whenever you went near it.”
“And to think that was before I knew what was inside. You should have dug a little deeper when you went pawing through it the other day, Cade.”
“What do you mean when I pawed through it? The chest is yours. I never even opened it.”
“So you drove the Captain over for one last attempt at search and destroy?”
The Captain scowled. “If I could climb the stairs to that second floor, missy, I’d be in my own house where I belong instead of dragging my sorry self around here, getting in the goddamn way.”
“Captain, we’re glad to have you—” Finn started, but Deirdre plunged on.
“I found what you were looking for, Cade,” Deirdre said, her gaze locking with his. “It was there all the time.”
He gritted his teeth, struggling for patience, an expression painfully familiar. And yet there was something brittle about him, his blue eyes burning, intense. “How could I be looking for it when I don’t even know what it is?”
Deirdre drew the letter out of her pocket, betrayal burning through her anew. “Don’t even try to lie your way out of this, either one of you.” Deirdre brandished the envelope at her brother and father. “All this time you knew—”
“Knew what?” the Captain asked, looking bewildered. “There was nothing but frills and nonsense in that cedar chest. Get hold of yourself right now, girl, and act like a McDaniel.”
Deirdre gave a harsh laugh. “I wonder how many millions of times I heard that one? ‘Act like a McDaniel, Deirdre. McDaniels don’t cry. McDaniels never quit. McDaniels don’t run away.’ I stunk at being a McDaniel, didn’t I? I just never knew the reason why. But you did. You and Mom and…Cade.” Her voice broke. She hated herself for showing weakness, reached deep inside to quell her tears. “This is a letter Mom wrote when I fell off that stupid plane.”
“Sonofabitch!” Cade paled. He grabbed the letter.
“Go ahead and take it,” Deirdre said. “I’ve already read it.”
Finn slanted a worried glance at the Captain, then hustled over to Deirdre, slipping one arm around her. “Why don’t you and Cade go into the kitchen. The two of you can talk—” Empathy and regret softened Finn’s face, her eyes far too easy to read.
“Oh my God, Finn!” Deirdre said, the truth jolting her. “You know it, too.”
“Know what? What the hell are the three of you talking about?” Martin McDaniel complained. “Quit acting like I’m not even here! I’m old, not stupid. And I have no idea what you’re all so upset about.”
Deirdre glared back at him in disbelief. “Don’t you get it? The game’s over. The secret’s out. But I’ve got to admit, you were damn good at covering it all up, Dad.” She all but spat the word.
“Deirdre, wait, he didn’t—” Cade started to intervene, but Deirdre didn’t even stop to draw breath.
“This whole pack of lies was just an earlier version of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ right, Captain? I’ve got to hand it to you, though, you handled it like an officer and a gentleman.”
“Deirdre, don’t,” Finn pleaded. “You’ll regret—” But Deirdre plunged on.
“Must have galled the hell out of you, having to pretend I was your daughter.”
“Pretend?” the Captain echoed.
“Having to look at me every day and know that Mom crawled into bed with some other man.”
Despite his injury, the Captain pulled himself ramrod straight. “Don’t you dare say such a thing about your mother!”
“Why not? We both know it’s true. My real father is some guy named Jimmy Rivermont. No wonder you couldn’t be in a room with me for ten minutes without losing your temper.”
“You’re not making any sense!” the Captain blustered. “Your mother was a perfect lady! She would never have…”
“Stop it, for God’s sake,” Deirdre raged. “If I hear what a perfect lady Mom was one more time I’m going to throw up! Don’t you get it? The game is over. I know the whole sordid story. It’s all in the letter Mom wrote to the guy she was screwing while you were off God-knows-where playing hero.”
Martin McDaniel staggered back a step, so damned confused Deirdre’s heart hurt. She had to fight to hold on to her outrage as he took the letter from Cade’s fingers, opened it, read it. He didn’t make a sound. Stood there, so still, as if he’d been turned to stone.
“What did you do?” Deirdre asked, like a kid poking at a sore tooth. “Sit at the table and shake your heads? ‘The girl is a mess, but what can you expect? It’s not as if she’s a McDaniel.’ I spent my whole life tearing myself apart wondering why I didn’t fit in with my own family. Why you and Mom loved Cade better. At least now I know the truth. It wouldn’t have mattered how hard I tried to be what you wanted me to be. I’d still be Emmaline McDaniel’s dirty little secret. No wonder you couldn’t love me.”
She dared her father to deny it was true, wanted him to insist that knowing she wasn’t his by blood hadn’t made any difference. She was his daughter in every way that counted. She needed her father to close the space between them, put his arms around her. But he didn’t.
The Captain turned to Cade, eyes once eagle sharp now pleading. “You knew about this? That your mother…your sister…”
Finn moved to her husband, slipped her arm around him. And for a heartbeat Deirdre wondered what that felt like—to have someone support you when the roof caved in. A soul mate who would walk through fire to shield you.
Cade drew strength from his wife, faced the rest of his family.
“Yeah. I knew.”
The Captain let the letter fall from his fingers. Deirdre could almost see his once-formidable strength drain away, his body suddenly frail, terrifyingly old. She wanted to reach
out to him but couldn’t. He’d just proved the greatest terror of her childhood to be true. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t even look at her.
Cade laid a hand on Martin McDaniel’s arm as gently as if the craggy old man were one of his twins. “Dad, wait.”
Deirdre flinched at the unexpected word. Dad. Cade said it so tenderly, closing the distance the whole family had kept by addressing the Captain by his rank all these years.
But Martin McDaniel didn’t seem to notice. He turned, shuffling out the door.
Cade looked as if he wanted to follow, but he was enough like his father to know it would be futile. McDaniels hid their weaknesses, burrowing in somewhere to lick their wounds like savage animals.
Silence fell, so thick Deirdre couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve been dreading this day since I was sixteen,” Cade said. “Scared that the truth would come out somehow. But I thought…hoped the secret died with Mom. God, Dee, haven’t you suffered enough? And the Captain, hell, what could the truth do but hurt him? Dad didn’t know about this any more than you did.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Deirdre stammered.
“I was never supposed to know, either. I accidentally overheard Mom talking to the doctor at the hospital. They were afraid you might need a kidney. When they tested for a compatible donor, the truth came out. Your blood work and the Captain’s proved you couldn’t be father and daughter.”
“My God.” Deirdre sagged into Finn’s rocking chair. “That’s why Mom changed once I got home from the hospital.”
Cade nodded. “It killed her just to look at me, knowing I knew her secret. Sometimes I think she was so afraid you and Dad would find out the truth that she wanted to die. Yes, she had an affair with some musician—”
“A musician?” Deirdre echoed. “Like me?”
“It doesn’t matter what the guy did for a living,” Cade said, but Deirdre could tell that he knew it did; it mattered to her in ways he’d understood far too long. “Mom stayed with us,” Cade insisted. “She tried to make things work. She loved all of us.”
“Don’t even go there, Cade.” A lifetime’s bitterness spilled through Deirdre. “She loved you. That’s why she stayed. She never loved me. At least now I know why.”
“Deirdre, you don’t know that,” Finn said. “People make mistakes. Do things they regret. You disappeared from Emma’s life for nine months, but that didn’t mean you’d stopped loving her. How do you know your mother—”
“Nice, Finn,” Deirdre said. “Real nice. Throw that up in my face.”
Tears welled in Finn’s eyes. “You’re my best friend. The sister I never had. I don’t want to hurt you, but I love you enough to tell you the truth.”
“The truth…” Deirdre echoed, Finn’s words lancing through her. “Yeah. Maybe it is time I faced the truth. My mother and I never could be anything like you. You’re so damned easy to love I could almost hate you for it. You even got three hardcases like the McDaniels to adore you. I mean, two McDaniels,” she corrected. “The Captain and…and Cade.”
Cade glowered. “Deirdre, none of this changes the fact that you’re my sister.”
“Don’t even try to tell me you felt the same way about me after you heard the truth!” Deirdre exclaimed. “You could hardly look at me after I came home from the hospital. It was like…like someone ripped all the joy right out of you. You were a stranger.”
“Dee, it was my fault you got hurt! I felt guilty as hell. Mom told me you came to the hangar because you missed me. All I did was yell at you, try to drag you off that plane. All I cared about was my damned job and the flying lessons it bought me. You almost died! And then to find out about Mom and—Hell, yes, it shook me up! But I didn’t stop loving you! I was just a kid myself, hurting, mixed up…”
“Deirdre,” Finn interrupted, desperate, “I wish you could have heard Cade when he told me how much he regretted the distance between you. It tore him apart.”
“No wonder he thought I wasn’t a fit mother for Emma,” Deirdre said. “I was the product of some sleazy affair.”
“You abandoned the kid on my goddamned doorstep without a word of explanation! I didn’t know where you were for nine months! It had nothing to do with who the hell your father is!”
“Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better,” Deirdre said, drawing in a shuddering breath.
“Okay, you want the truth? I would have given my right arm to keep you from finding that letter. To keep you and the Captain from finding out about a piece of ancient history that could only hurt you. But when it comes right down to it, you’re still my kid sister. The Captain’s still your father. That letter doesn’t change a damn thing.”
“You’re wrong,” Deirdre said, her chin bumping up a notch. “It changes everything.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked and do something we’re all going to regret. I know you’ve got a hell of a mad on, but the truth is you’re hurt. Hurting people back isn’t going to make you feel any better.”
“Maybe not. But finding my real father might.”
“The Captain is your real father,” Cade roared in exasperation. “He’s the one who taught you how to throw a baseball, who ran all over town looking for orange pop when you were sick!”
“Yeah, well, the military trained him to fall on a grenade if necessary,” Deirdre said. “Duty, honor, country and all that crap. When it comes right down to it, we should all be relieved! None of us have to pretend to be a big happy family anymore.”
She snatched the letter. Cade swore. He grabbed for her arm.
She wheeled on him, flames all but shooting from her eyes. “Leave me the hell alone!” she roared.
“Damn it, Dee, I’m sorry. Tell me…tell me what to do. How to fix things.”
Fix things…that’s what Cade had always been good at. But all the magic in the world couldn’t erase the letter’s contents from Deirdre’s mind.
“You want to know what hurts most of all?” Deirdre said. “You lied to me, all this time. Cade, I trusted you.” Tears pushed against her lashes. She turned, fled.
She could hear Cade start after her, heard Finn’s insistent voice. “Let her go. She needs time to sort this through.”
Finn probably thought once Deirdre calmed down everything would be all right. Finn and Cade would try to put the broken pieces of the family together again. They didn’t know it would never work.
The hurt of a lifetime finally made sense. She wasn’t a McDaniel. It was time to find out exactly who she was.
She raced across the garden that separated Cade’s cabin from March Winds, slipped around to the back door to avoid the newlyweds mooning over each other in the porch swing. She rushed into the private living quarters she and Emma called home and stumbled to the small office that was her haven, a room devoid of the antiques and Victorian furbelows that gave the rest of the old house its old-world aura.
Deirdre slammed the door and leaned against it as if a wolf were chasing a few feet behind her. She sucked in a deep breath, the tears finally falling free. Disgusted with herself, she scrubbed them from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She wasn’t going to waste any time crying. She was going to do something. But what?
How was she supposed to find this Jimmy Rivermont so many years later? Considering the letter was returned to sender it was obvious her mother hadn’t been able to find the man. And at least she’d known who she was looking for.
Deirdre didn’t have a clue how to begin. How did you find someone who’d disappeared?
She closed her eyes, her memory suddenly filling with a tall man in a long outback-style coat, a black cowboy hat on his head, his steel-gray gaze dangerous, ruthless. Six years had passed since she’d opened the door to find Jake Stone on the other side—the private investigator tracking down the small fortune Finn’s ne’er-do-well father had stolen. Obliterating the inheritance Finn had believed was proof her father had loved her enough to provide her with the home he’d never given h
er as a child.
Stone had shattered Finn’s illusions, all but destroyed Cade and Finn’s chance at happiness, then gone, leaving ugly scars in his wake. Finn had made peace with it as best as she could, she and Cade working hard to repay every penny, but her father’s betrayal still haunted her. Deirdre could sense it when no one else was looking.
She hated Stone for what he’d done. Let him know she thought he was lower than pond scum. What else could he be, digging into people’s lives, destroying them for a fee?
She recoiled inwardly from the man, what he did for a living. The ruthlessness in his eyes. He was a son of a bitch. But he was a talented son of a bitch. If anyone could find her real father, he could.
Deirdre grabbed the phone book from its perch on her desk, leafed through it and found the entry. “Jake Stone, P.I. By appointment only…”
Ripping the page out, she grabbed her purse and keys and headed out the back door. Forget making an appointment. It had been loathing at first sight between her and Stone. Face-to-face it would be harder for him to turn her down.
Considering what he’d done to Finn, it was obvious the man was willing to do anything for the almighty dollar. She’d pay him what he wanted. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
CHAPTER 3
DEIRDRE DID A DOUBLE TAKE as she pulled up to Stone’s office. She’d expected an anonymous-looking brick building where people could slink in to ask Stone to unravel secrets. Something from an old detective movie, not the immaculately kept Arts-and-Crafts-style bungalow, its fresh coat of café au lait paint with splashes of hunter green and deep red trim gleaming amid other, more down-at-the-heels houses nearby.
But if Stone’s office defied her expectations, the trio of Harley-Davidson motorcycles blocking the driveway fit the clientele she’d imagined Stone would associate with. Skulls and crossbones decked two of the machines, the other inscribed with the motto, “Born To Raise Hell,” amid an elaborate design of flames.
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