The Secret Daughter Page 10

  Clearly, he did not intend to be forthcoming. Normally, she’d have respected his privacy. But in view of the way he’d invaded hers, she felt a little reciprocity was justified. “Okay, Joe, what’s the real story here? Because you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you just went out and killed a man for the fun of it.”

  “Go to blazes, Imogen! I’ve never been big on spilling my guts, and this particular subject is something I’d just as soon forget about.”

  “You brought it up,” she pointed out, reasonably.

  But he reacted with an anger she’d never seen in him. “Because I want you off my back!” he snarled. “You and I don’t fit, no matter how much you try to jam the pieces into place. I’m not interested in playing the lead in your ‘Princess and the Jailbird’ soap opera.”

  “And I’m not interested in judging your past.” When his only response was to stare stonily ahead, she placed a tentative hand on his arm. “It’s the man you are today that counts, Joe. Surely you know that?”

  Even in the gloom, she saw his grimace of distaste. “It’s the man you are today that counts!” he echoed in an insulting falsetto. “Good golly, Miss Imogen, I pity the guy who winds up married to you! Sitting across the table from a woman who takes a bromide pill before breakfast every morning would be a hell of a way to start the day.”

  He took sarcasm to new heights. “Please don’t lose any sleep over the idea that I’m about to propose,” she said huffily. “In fact, if the main objective of your diatribe is to persuade me you’re the last man in the world I should be trying to corral, you’re succeeding admirably. The longer this conversation goes on, the more convinced I’m becoming that you’re right. Beyond the fact that we made a baby, you and I really don’t have a single thing in common.”

  A sign posting the approach to Rosemont flashed by. “Well, praise the lord!” he crowed jubilantly. “It’s taken nearly two hours, but she finally got the message.”

  “You can deny it all you like, but two hours ago, you wanted nothing more than to make love to me.”

  “Sure I did. Any man would. You’re a lovely woman. It’s how you react to the idea that bothers me. You’re convinced you’re still carrying a torch for me. And why? Because I know what you’re wearing under that modest jacket and skirt. Tell me, Imogen, how many men can say the same? How many others have seen you naked and taken you to bed?”

  She turned away from him, afraid that if she tried to answer, she’d betray her utter ignorance of anything approaching the intimacy she’d shared with him.

  But he knew. “I thought as much,” he said. “Not a one. Your Puritan little soul won’t forgive you for having conceived a child out of wedlock, and the only way you can earn redemption is by making yourself miserable all over again. Because that’s what would happen if you were stuck with me, princess. I’m not the country club, round-of-golf type, and I never will be.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” she said. “Whether or not you belong to the right clubs?”

  He sighed like a man whose patience was being tried beyond mortal capacity. “Do you know what I do for a living? I train horses for a friend of the expat American who got me off Ojo del Diablo. I live in a one-bedroom house on a spread in the foothills of the Cuyamaca Mountains in California and come home at the end of the day with manure stuck to my boots.

  “And you want to know what else? I love it. Not because I’ve made more money than I ever expected to or because my boss respects me and values my work, but because it makes me happy. And the woman who marries me is going to have to be content with that and what I’m able to provide for her. No foreign sports cars, no mansion on the hill and only a very modest diamond on her finger.”

  “I don’t need a rich man,” she said in a small voice. “I have enough money of my own.”

  “And I don’t want to be kept by a woman. So go back to the big city and find yourself a man who fits the mold, princess.”

  “In other words, even if I’d told you about the baby and she hadn’t died, I’d still have had to cope on my own.”

  “I didn’t say that. But we’re not dealing with what if, we’re dealing with what is.”

  Yes, they were, and if sex was all he had to bring to their relationship, she was better off without him.

  He’d barely brought the car to a stop outside Deepdene before she opened the door and stepped out. “Don’t bother,” she said, when he made a move to do likewise. “I can make it the rest of the way without you.”

  There was a pause before he slammed his door closed and his voice floated into the night, underscored by the muted growl of the engine as he shifted into first gear. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along, princess. But don’t take it to mean that I don’t intend to do a little research into our daughter’s whereabouts, because I do. And if you’re still interested in finding the baby’s grave—”

  “I’m not,” she said. “At least, not with you. In fact, the less I have to do with you, the better. And just for the record, you’re the one who came chasing after me, following me along the boardwalk, showing up at my hotel, phoning me at my mother’s house and asking me out tonight, not the other way around. If I’d had my way, we’d never have exchanged another word after I left you and Patsy at the restaurant in the park two evenings ago.”

  As a parting shot, it found its mark. He roared off down the drive in a screech of tires, leaving behind nothing but the smell of burning rubber. A savvy woman would have let that be enough to solace the wounds he’d inflicted.

  But what did she do? Crept to her room and climbed into bed with that infernal diary. As if, since she couldn’t have the man himself, she’d make do with the vicarious thrills of reliving past experiences with him.

  May 21

  Played tennis at the club with Rick Aldren this p.m. Temperature must have been in the nineties. He drove me home after. Stopped on the way to get gas at Donnelly’s Garage. Joe was lending a hand, dressed for the weather, stripped to the waist and wearing denim cutoffs that looked about ready to fall off. Talk about tall and tanned! I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He came over to clean the bugs off the windshield and I practically drooled at the sight. Even his armpits are sexy. He saw me looking and gave me that smile of his....

  December 21

  Tonight was the best night of my life. I talked Mother into letting me go to the Christmas social at St. Patrick’s Church and Joe Donnelly was playing in the band. Of course, I had an earlier curfew than anyone else and was on my way out of the hall just as he was coming back from a break, and we bumped into each other. We both looked up and saw the mistletoe and of course I blushed. And he smiled the way he always does and said, “Well, princess, I guess this is where you get to kiss the frog. Merry Christmas.” And he kissed me. Not just one of those peck-on-the-cheek things, but a real lip slammer, as Julie Coombs would say.

  I’ll never forget how it felt, sort of soft and firm all at the same time. None of that spit and tooth tangling business Dave Baxter goes in for. But then, he hasn’t had much practice, whereas everybody knows Joe Donnelly’s been kissing girls practically from the day he started kindergarten.

  Saturday, March 14

  Dear Diary, this is the first time I’ve been able to write anything down since my father died last month. I miss him so much. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again or hear his voice. Mother says life goes on and we have to make the best of it, but sometimes I wonder why, if all a person has to look forward to is dying. I haven’t been out much. Don’t really feel like seeing anyone. At school, people don’t seem to know what to say to me, although my friends do their best to cheer me up. But then this afternoon I went into town to get my hair cut and ran into Joe Donnelly as I was leaving the salon. Usually, all he does is smirk and make some smart remark but today he stopped and said he was sorry to hear about my father and how was I doing. Actually, I’d been feeling as if some sort of fire had gone out inside me, but the way he spoke, as
if he really cared and wasn’t just going through the motions, brought a little flicker of warmth back to life.

  July 26

  Maureen Wallace invited a whole gang of us over to her place for a barbecue yesterday and I had a great time until I burned my hand flipping hamburgers.

  Patsy, ever the nurse-in-waiting, took me to her house for first aid.

  Mrs. Donnelly was in the kitchen taking fruit pies out of the oven. She sat at the table next to me and fussed about putting cream on my blister.

  Just as she finished bandaging my hand, Joe came into the house and suddenly that big, homey kitchen seemed small and cramped. He was stripped to the waist and after I stopped staring at his muscles and the hair on his chest, I noticed he was carrying a puppy wrapped up in his shirt. He’d found the poor thing lying abandoned at the side of the road outside town. He found a box and blanket and fed the puppy some milk, then came and straddled a chair across from me and said I looked almost as miserable as the mutt and hadn’t my mother ever told me not to play with fire.

  He made me feel really weird inside. All tingly and full, as if I might throw up, then hot and churning and achy.

  I know from things Julie Coombs talks about that boys like to touch girls’ breasts and even touch other parts of their bodies, but it’s never happened to me, nor have I ever wanted it to. Actually, the whole idea seemed gross and disgusting before. But something’s changed and all I know is that, if Joe Donnelly had suggested I go with him down by the river, I would have walked out of that house without a backward glance and let him touch anything he wanted....

  And eleven years later, nothing much had changed.

  “I was hoping you’d stop by my room for a little chat last night, but I suppose you were too tired.”

  Suzanne let the remark drop casually at breakfast the next morning, but Imogen recognized it as the opening salvo in what would surely amount to the fiercest clash of wills she’d yet to engage in with her mother. Of course, it was bound to happen sooner or later. But later would have been nice—after, rather than before, the first cup of coffee of the day.

  Stalling, and despising herself for doing so, she said, “It was late when I got back.”

  “I noticed.” The fractional silence, the small, disparaging sniff, spoke volumes of disapproval. Installed behind the silver coffeepot, her morning robe falling in graceful folds of red silk from her throat to her ankles, with every last shining blond hair perfectly in place, Suzanne clearly thought she had the situation very well in hand. She captured a sugar cube in sterling tongs and held it poised over her cup much like an executioner about to lower the ax. “I have to say, Imogen, I was shocked—shocked—that you agreed to be seen with that man yesterday. Have you forgotten it was he who ruined your life?”

  “That’s enough, Mother. I don’t want to hear this.”

  “Well, someone certainly has to make you see the folly of your ways, and who better than your mother? Or have you forgotten that it was I who came to the rescue when you found yourself in trouble? Furthermore, how you can defend a man you must surely despise—”

  “I said I don’t want to hear this, Mother, so please stop it right now.”

  The sugar cube dropped into the cup with an affronted little plop. “I’m not sure I care for your tone, Imogen. In fact, I don’t like it one little bit.”

  “I’m sorry. But if my being somewhat abrupt—”

  “Abrupt?” With meticulous care, Suzanne raised the cup to her lips and took a sip. “You’re being downright rude.”

  Gazing steadily at her mother, Imogen stood her ground. “If that’s the only way I can get what I have to say across to you, then I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with it. Because for once, Mother, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen. And if,” she said, raising her hand to override the outburst she could see was about to erupt, “you cannot, or will not, do that, then I shall leave this house yet again, and this time I won’t be coming back.”

  She paused, as much to gauge the effect she’d had on her mother as to draw breath. Suzanne sat transfixed, her china blue eyes sparking aggrievedly, but she uttered not a word.

  Encouraged, Imogen continued. “First of all, I do not despise Joe Donnelly.”

  But I ache for him and what might have been!

  The truth attacked without warning, a vicious stab of regret that punctured her composure. It was her own fault. She should never have opened that blasted diary again.

  Resolutely gearing her thoughts to the here and now, she picked up where she’d left off. “Whether or not you care to acknowledge the fact, he was your grandchild’s father, which, in itself, is a tie that will always bind me to him. When I was a girl of eighteen, you were perhaps right to interfere in my life, and I’m sure you thought you were acting in my best interests. But I’m not a girl any longer. I took charge of my life a long time ago.”

  She stopped to finish her juice—a risky move since it gave her mother the opportunity to jump in and try to seize control of the conversation—but Suzanne appeared to be in a state of shock and stared at her across the table.

  “I had no other choice, Mother, because you’d washed your hands of me, and there was no one else I could to turn to. And let’s not pretend you did this all for my own good, because you were thinking of what was best for you, too. You were ashamed of me, and I think you were glad that my baby died, because heaven only knows how you’d have explained her to your friends.”

  Beyond a strangled gasp, Suzanne offered no comment.

  “But I was devastated at losing her, not just because she was my daughter, but because she was also Joe’s and all I had left of him. You might have been able to put her out of your mind, but I never could, and you can have no idea how often I’ve wondered how things might have turned out for us if she had lived and Joe had known about her.”

  She stopped and pretended to busy herself buttering a slice of toast. In reality, she was close to tears—again. It was something that had been happening with drab monotony practically from the moment she’d arrived in town. The reason this time was that, from her perspective, life with Joe and their baby could have been pretty wonderful. The pity of it was, he didn’t see things in quite the same light.

  Suzanne stirred. “I cannot imagine—”

  “Please let me finish, Mother, then I’ll be more than happy to let you say your piece. First of all, I realize that there’s no going back, and if you’re worried that Joe and I might resume our relationship, you can relax because he’s made it crystal clear it’s not going to happen. But that doesn’t make him the villain of the piece, nor was he ever the bad person you tried to make him out to be. He was devastated to learn there’d been a baby and that she’d died.”

  “You told him?” The question ghosted past her mother’s lips frail as thistledown. “Imogen, what on earth possessed you?”

  “Actually, he confronted me with the truth and I wasn’t about to lie. Naturally, he had questions.”

  “Don’t answer them. He has no right—”

  “He has every right. That’s why he asked me out last night, to get answers. But there was very little I could tell him beyond the bare facts, and that’s not enough to satisfy him.”

  “Oh, the man should be shot!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Can’t you see that he’s bringing back all the pain you suffered as if it happened just yesterday? Stay away from him, Imogen, please.”

  “He can’t just file his child’s death away like an old tax return. More to the point, neither can I.” Pushing her plate aside, Imogen leaned across the table urgently. “For years, I’ve refused to confront those questions, but they haven’t gone away because I ignored them, Mother. They’re still gnawing away at the back of my mind, and it’s taken Joe to make me realize they always will be unless I deal with them.”

  Taking a deep breath, she leveled a very direct look at Suzanne. “So, tell me, Mother, where can we find the birth records and where is our daughter buried? Because Jo
e is anxious to learn everything there is to know about her and to visit her grave. And for both our sakes, I’ve agreed to help him.”

  “No!” Hoarsely, the cry burst from Suzanne at the same time that her coffee cup slipped out of her hand and spread its contents over the polished surface of the table. “My God, Imogen, you cannot let him pursue this matter!”

  “I couldn’t stop him even if I tried. We’re not dealing with a frightened teenager here. Joe Donnelly’s a man with a mind and a will of his own. He’s determined to assert his rights, and I can’t say I blame him. I had no business keeping the pregnancy from him in the first place.”

  Suzanne’s face seemed to cave in on itself. The woman who, half an hour earlier, could have passed for a well-preserved forty-five suddenly looked an unhealthy seventy. “Imogen,” she whispered, raising a palsied hand to her throat, “I’m begging you, for all our sakes, put a stop to this before it goes any further.”

  “You’re overreacting.” Though outwardly calm in the face of such an impassioned outburst, Imogen was thoroughly alarmed. “Why should I try to put him off?”

  Her mother might have been staring into the jaws of hell when she replied. “Because there is no grave, Imogen. The child did not die.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LISTER’S Meadows didn’t look so very different from the way it had the last time Imogen had seen it, the day she’d burned her hand on the barbecue. Children still played under laundry hanging from long lines in the back gardens, geraniums grew in pots on windowsills, and bright gold and orange nasturtiums spilled over the low wall fronting the Donnelly house. Even the dog dozing in the sun on the doorstep looked like an older version of the puppy Joe had brought home that day she’d been seventeen and disillusionment was still a year away.